Ethanol biofuel demand in Brazil is highly dependent on macroeconomic and policy drivers, making it difficult to anticipate future production and associated environmental implications.Here we develop scenarios of ethanol demand in Brazil towards 2030, based on a thorough examination of key influencing drivers, i.e. GDP and population growth, fleet composition, blending policies, fuel prices and energy efficiency. We then estimate their land-use implications using a detailed partial equilibrium model, GLOBIOM-Brazil. We find that ethanol demand is highly sensitive to the drivers considered and could increase between 37.4 and 70.7 billion litres in 2030 depending on the scenario. Such increase is 13% and 114% above the 2018 consumption level. This represents an expansion in sugarcane area between 1.2 and 5 million hectares (14% -58% above the land-use in 2018). Compared to the low demand scenario, a high demand for ethanol in 2030 would drive sugarcane expansion mostly into pastureland (72%) and natural vegetation mosaics (19%). Our results suggest that future ethanol demand in Brazil should not substantially affect food production nor native forest. This outcome will however depend on the compliance with the sugarcane agro-ecological zoning (AEZ) by the ethanol sector in Brazil, a key assumption of our projections.
Consulting the best available evidence is key to successful conservation decision-making. While much scientific evidence on conservation continues to be published in non-English languages, a poor understanding of how non-English language science contributes to conservation decision-making is causing global assessments and studies to practically ignore non-English-language literature. By investigating the use of scientific literature in biodiversity assessment reports across 37 countries/territories, we uncover the established role of non-English-language literature as a major information source locally. On average, non-English-language literature constituted 65% of the references cited, and were recognised as relevant knowledge sources by 75% of report authors. This means that by ignoring non-English-language science, international assessments may overlook important information on local/regional biodiversity. A quarter of the authors acknowledged the struggles of understanding English-language literature. This points to the need to aid the use of English-language literature in domestic decision-making, for example, by providing non-Englishlanguage abstracts or improving/implementing machine translation.
Consulting the best available evidence is key to successful conservation decision-making. While much scientific evidence on conservation continues to be published in non-English languages, a poor understanding of how non-English languages science contributes to conservation decision-making is causing global assessments and studies to practically ignore non-English-language literature. By investigating the use of scientific literature in biodiversity assessment reports across 37 countries/territories, we uncover the established role of non-English-language literature as a major information source locally. On average, non-English-language literature constituted 65% of the references cited, and were recognised as relevant knowledge sources by 75% of report authors. This means that by ignoring non-English-language science, international assessments may overlook important information on local/regional biodiversity. A quarter of the authors acknowledged the struggles of understanding English-language literature. This points to the need to aid the use of English-language literature in domestic decision-making, for example, by providing non-English-language abstracts or improving/implementing machine translation.
Because the consumption of materials is generally higher than their recovery rate, improving municipal solid waste (MSW) management is fundamental for increasing the efficiency of natural resource use and consumption in urban areas. More broadly, the characteristics of a MSW management system influence the end-of-life (EOL) impacts of goods consumed by households. We aim to indicate the extent to which greenhouse gas emissions from a MSW management system can be reduced by increasing waste paper recycling. We also address the stakeholders' contribution for driving transition towards an improved scenario. Life cycle assessment (LCA) addresses the EOL impacts of the paper industry, driven by the characteristics of MSW management in Florianópolis, Brazil, by varying the level of stakeholders' commitment through different recycling scenarios. The results show that 41% of the climate change impacts from waste paper management could be reduced when increasing the waste paper recycling rates and reducing waste paper landfilling. To achieve such emissions reduction, the industry contribution to the MSW management system would have to increase from 17% in the business-as-usual scenario to 74% in the target scenario. We were able to measure the differences in stakeholders' contribution by modelling the MSW management system processes that are under the industry's responsibility separately from the processes that are under the government's responsibility, based on the Brazilian legal framework. The conclusions indicate that LCA can be used to support policy directions on reducing the impacts of MSW management by increasing resource recovery towards a circular economy.
Appropriate legislation, technical regulations and standards are essential to put into practice water-efficient technologies, procedures and products, both to promote the implementation and to avoid eventual barriers in the application of the adequate measures. In Portugal as in Brazil, efficient use of water and the reduction of water waste are important environmental goals. In the former, the National Program for the Efficient Use of Water for the urban, agricultural and industrial sectors is the base document for this purpose. In the latter, the National Program to Prevent the Waste of Water, for the urban sector, has been in action since 1997.
The purpose of the paper is to present a brief overview of the current situation in terms of regulations and standards, highlighting the needs and some barriers, having as reference the situation in Portugal and Brazil, and the measures intended to be applied in the respective programs.
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