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Em planejamentos de recursos hídricos os cursos d'água devem ser avaliados sob uma perspectiva sistêmica e integrada ao seu meio. Para tanto há a necessidade de se analisar aspectos ambientais e sociais de difícil inserção e comparação com aspectos técnicos e econômicos, mais facilmente quantificados. Neste sentido, algumas experiências têm sido realizadas através do uso de alguns métodos multicriteriais. Este trabalho objetiva avaliar os resultados de diferentes métodos multicriteriais que incorporam características ambientais, sociais, técnicas e econômicas comumente utilizadas em estudos de planejamento de recursos hídricos supondo uma visão ecossistêmicas do meio. A área de estudo adotada foi a bacia do Baixo Cotia, localizada na Região Metropolitana de São Paulo (RMSP), e o objetivo central foi o planejamento para a reabilitação, expansão e conservação do sistema produtor de água potável. Foram adotados 20 critérios e nove diferentes alternativas para o estudo do problema os quais foram aplicados cinco diferentes métodos de auxílio à tomada de decisão. Os cinco métodos utilizados foram: ELECTRE II, PROMETHEE II, Programação por Compromisso (CP), Teoria dos Jogos Cooperativos (CGT) e o método Analítico Hierárquico (AHP). Os métodos multicriteriais foram aplicados a quatro combinações distintas de pesos atribuídos aos critérios, obtidos através de consulta por questionário estruturado a especialistas. Dos cinco métodos utilizados quatro apresentaram resultados praticamente coincidentes.A inserção de critérios ambientais e sociais foi considerada viável, possibilitando a melhoria do processo de tomada de decisão para a escolha de alternativas.Palavras-chave: planejamento e gestão de recursos hídricos; análise multicriterial; reuso de água; métodos multicriteriais; tomada de decisão.

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Strictly Protected Areas and riparian forests in Brazil are rarely large enough or connected enough to maintain viable populations of carnivores and animal movement over time, but these characteristics are fundamental for species conservation as they prevent the extinction of isolated animal populations. Therefore, the need to maintain connectivity for these species in human-dominated Atlantic landscapes is critical. In this study, we evaluated the landscape connectivity for large carnivores (cougar and jaguar) among the Strictly Protected Areas in the Atlantic Forest, evaluated the efficiency of the Mosaics of Protected Areas linked to land uses in promoting landscape connectivity, identified the critical habitat connections, and predicted the landscape connectivity status under the implementation of legislation for protecting riparian forests. The method was based on expert opinion translated into land use and land cover maps. The results show that the Protected Areas are still connected by a narrow band of landscape that is permeable to both species and that the Mosaics of Protected Areas increase the amount of protected area but fail to increase the connectivity between the forested mountain ranges (Serra do Mar and Serra da Mantiqueira). Riparian forests greatly increase connectivity, more than tripling the cougars' priority areas. We note that the selection of Brazilian protected areas still fails to create connectivity among the legally protected forest remnants. We recommend the immediate protection of the priority areas identified that would increase the structural landscape connectivity for these large carnivores, especially paths in the SE/NW direction between the two mountain ranges.

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Questions:We studied the importance of soil properties and neighbouring forest cover in affecting plant community biomass and assembly during the tropical forest restoration process. We also investigated how compositional responses depended on traits expected to influence individual success.Location: Forest restoration sites across anthropogenic grasslands in mixed use agricultural watersheds, eastern São Paulo state, Brazil. Methods:We identified and measured all woody individuals (DBH ≥ 5 cm) in four 200-m² plots per site. Then we translated these measurements into above-ground biomass (AGB), and related AGB variability to neighbouring forest cover, soil texture and chemical fertility using mixed effect models. We assessed the effect of these predictors on different species groups, arranged according to variation in wood density, tree height or habitat selectivity, through multivariate abundance models.Results: AGB ranged between 0 and 104.7 t/ha (median of 10.4 t/ha), with high variation within, as well as between, watersheds. Sand percentage, forest cover and the interaction between soil nutrient concentrations and sand percentage were good predictors of measured AGB. The most parsimonious model projected a seven growing seasons AGB recovery of 70.90 t/ha, when a site is on fertile soils with 10% sand and surrounded by forest cover of 50%. In contrast, only 5.24 t/ha is predicted on acidicpoor soils with 67% sand and 0% forest cover. Increasing forest cover favoured smaller trees and habitat generalists while increasing sand percentage inhibited taller species and forest specialists. Sand percentage constrained softwoods in fertile soils. Conclusion:Our results confirm that the likelihood of restoration to pre-disturbance conditions is constrained in contexts of higher degradation, such as when agricultural use adversely affects soil properties and/or motivates extreme deforestation. Lower AGB found on sandy soils suggests that forest recovery is sensitive to local drought intensification. Given regional projections for extended dry seasons, restoration approaches could consider targeting alternative reference states, rather than historical/ undisturbed ones, under highly altered environments, while aiming to improve soil and microclimate conditions to allow moist tropical forest recovery where feasible.