No abstract

Urban cemeteries on a global scale raise concerns due to their potential to concentrate differing levels of hazardous pollutants in their native soils due to the unnatural concentration of burials in a limited space. It is paramount for sustainability that designers of future cemeteries take this into account in order to minimize the deposition and movement of these contaminants within the soil profile. The objective of this manuscript is to identify the levels of certain hazardous element contamination, specifically heavy metals, in the soil of horizontal urban cemeteries that do not utilize herbicides for weed control. In this, solutions were sought for the construction of future urban cemeteries capable of mitigating further contamination of the environment by the increase in interments. The soils of three urban cemeteries (A, B and C) in the Brazilian city of Carazinho, in Rio Grande do Sul State, were sampled with 5 monitoring points in the internal area and 5 points in the external area of the cemeteries. At each point, 3 replications were performed at two depths (0-20 and 20-40 cm), totaling 180 samples in all, to determine the concentration of the following metals: copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), lead (Pb), and chromium (Cr) (g kg-1). In addition, online interviews with 15 architects who design cemeteries were conducted. Architectural design solutions to mitigate environmental contamination were modeled utilizing the Building Information Modeling system (BIM). The results showed an excess of Cu in the soil of cemeteries A, B and C, surpassing the standards allowed by Brazilian federal regulations. A total of 80% of the interviewed architects expressed their preference for the vertical cemetery, with gas and effluent treatment systems to mitigate environmental impacts.

The analysis of satellite images is of fundamental importance in relation to understanding the evolution in land use. The general objective of this study is to analyze the changes in characteristics of rural land use in the municipality of Carazinho (RS) from 2001 to 2020 through the analysis of images taken from the Landsat TM-7 and TM-8 satellites. The TM-7 and TM-8 satellite images were classified and supervised, thus generation thematic maps with the following groups: tillage, forest, water resources and exposed soil. The analysis of this study showed that in 2001 the tillage group had an area of 10,651.6 ha, the forest group had an area of 7,248.03 ha, the water resources group occupied an area of 1,444.96 ha, and the exposed soil group occupied an area of 6,798.75 ha. When using the images taken in 2020, the same area presented the following data: the tillage group with an area of 15,941.5 ha. (60.95%), the forest group with an area of 4,320.99 ha (16.52%), water resources group with an area of 141.02 ha (0.53%), and the exposed soil group with an area of 5,747.22 ha (21.97%). The results demonstrate changes in land use during the study period, mainly with regard to the increase of cultivation areas and, consequently, the suppression of vegetation.

Resumo A participação em saúde tem gerado um grande número de publicações em todo o mundo. Para conhecer as especificidades dessa produção nas Américas, foi realizada uma análise bibliométrica de artigos em inglês, espanhol e português. Foram realizadas buscas na BVS, PubMed, SCOPUS, WOS e SciELO, consolidando uma base de dados com 641 referências. Com auxílio do software VOSviewer, analisamos padrões de citação, coautoria e a distribuição cronológica por países e idiomas. Foi possível verificar o crescimento da produção, a relevância quantitativa e o impacto dos diferentes países. A análise indicou que os EUA concentram o maior número de citações, e o Brasil, apesar de ser o primeiro em número de publicações, é o terceiro em número de citações. O mesmo ocorre com os periódicos brasileiros que, com o maior número de artigos, caem no ranking dos mais citados. Nos dez artigos mais citados, descatam-se trabalhos desenvolvidos nos EUA e Canadá. A análise de coautoria indicou que a Universidade de Toronto, a Fiocruz e a Universidade de Harvard são as que mais têm colaborações formais com outras organizações. Concluímos que existem desigualdades de impacto, visibilidade e internacionalização neste campo, indicando obstáculos para o desenvolvimento científico e das políticas de saúde.

The increasing mortality of COVID-19 can aggravate soil contamination by metals, harmful to the health of the population, requiring new projects for future cemeteries capable of mitigating these impacts to the environment, justifying the importance of studying the concentrations of metals in the soil of urban cemeteries. The paper analyzed the levels of metals in the soil of urban cemeteries in the City of Carazinho, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, located in southern Brazil, considering the increase in deaths by COVID-19, for the purpose of future projects for cemeteries aimed at mitigating the impacts generated on the environment. The soils of the three urban cemeteries in Carazinho were sampled, with 5 internal and external points, with 3 repetitions at depths of 0–20 and 20–40 cm, adding 180 samples to measure the concentrations of Fe, Mn, Cu, Zn, Cr and Pb (g kg −1 ), considering the analytical sequence: (1) analysis in triplicate with mean deviation (RDS); (2) R2 of the analytical curve; (3) traceability of the pattern of each metal; (4) quantification limit of each metal (QL), with the performance of nitroperchloric digestion of the samples and the determinations of metals by flame modality atomic absorption spectrometry. Quantitative data on deaths by COVID-19 were analyzed by univariate modeling of time series, in the integrated autoregressive moving averages model. The results of this study were made available to fifteen architects, who attributed future solutions for environmentally sustainable cemeteries. The results showed high levels of copper (Cu) and iron (Fe) in the soil of the cemeteries studied. Considering the increase in deaths and subsequent burials per COVID-19 revealed a prediction for the death toll of 6,082,306 for June 9, 2022, it is assumed that metal contamination can reach even higher levels. To mitigate these levels of contamination by metals, 80% of the architect respondents expressed their preference for a vertical cemetery, with treatment of gases and effluents to mitigate environmental impacts.