The rapid urban growth followed by disordered occupation has been generating significant impacts on cities, bringing losses of an economic and social nature that directly interfere with the well-being of the population. In this work, a proposal for local urban infrastructure problems associated with watercourse management is presented, comparing Sustainable Drainage System (SuDS) techniques and Low-Impact Development (LID) concepts with alternative traditional interventions. The study addresses sustainable alternatives to cope with the urbanization of the Cehab’s open channel, which is an important urban watercourse tributary of the Muriaé River, at the municipality of Itaperuna, Rio de Janeiro—Brazil. The multi-criteria decision-making method called Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) was applied here. The results highlighted the better performance of sustainable techniques when compared to the traditional ones, with an overall advantage of the geogrids and geocells for this case study. The obtained TOPSIS coefficients-C for these techniques were higher (0.59488, for Reach 1; and 0.68656, for Reach 2) than those for the others. This research, therefore, presented an important urban watercourse management methodology that can be further applied to guide sustainable investments and help the decision-making associated with the development of territories.

Multi-Hydro hydrological modelling of a complex peri-urban catchment with storage basins comparing C-band and X-band radar rainfall data The spread of impervious surfaces in urban areas combined with the rise in the intensity of rainfall events as a result of climate change has led to dangerous increases in stormwater flows. This paper discusses a new implementation of the fully distributed hydrological model called Multi-Hydro, developed at École des Ponts ParisTech, while operating storage basins and its ability to deal with highresolution radar rainfall data. The peri-urban area of Massy (south of Paris, France) was selected as a case study for having six of these drainage facilities, extensively used in flood control. Two radar rainfall datasets with different spatio-temporal resolutions were used: Météo-France's PANTHER rainfall product (C-band) and ENPC's X-band DPSRI. The rainfall spatio-temporal variability was statistically analysed using Universal Multifractals (UM). Finally, to validate the application, the water level simulations were compared with local measurements in the Cora storage basin located next to the catchment's single outlet.

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The inefficiency of Brazil’s logistics system to handle the outflow of farm products impairs the sector’s performance. From the economic perspective, the high freight rates put the country’s agricultural sector at a competitive disadvantage in the global market. Besides this, the reliance on highway transport causes problems of an environmental (high CO 2 emissions) and social nature (large occurrence of accidents). As an alternative to this dependence, Brazil has an extensive network of actually and potentially navigable rivers that could serve as a key element to improve the performance of the agricultural sector. Therefore, the objective of this study is to analyze the possible influence of the Tapajós-Teles Pires Waterway on the sustainable performance of 19 Brazilian soybean export routes, using data envelopment analysis (DEA). Of these, only three would use the Tapajós-Teles Pires Waterway, which is not yet in operation. The origins of the routes are four soybean-producing centers located in Mato Grosso, the Brazilian state that produces the most soybeans, destined for 12 seaports. The inputs considered are Accident Cost and CO2 Emissions, while the output is Cargo Carried per US$. For this, we use the DEA-VRS (Variable Return Scale) input-oriented model. The results obtained from the DEA model revealed satisfactory performance of the routes using the Tapajós-Teles Pires Waterway from three of the four production centers. In Campo Novo do Parecis, some 16% (471 km) of the route is composed of highways and the rest of the waterway (84%, 1576 km). In Sorriso, only 3% (85 km) of the route consists of highways, while waterway transport is responsible for 97% (2388 km), and in Querência, 24.55% of the route to the Port of Barcarena consists of highways. The use of these routes and the combination of the two transport modes presented the best efficiency indexes, making development of the waterway a key element to improve the outflow of soybeans for export. The results of this study may help Brazilian authorities to define public policies and apply resources to improve the deficiencies of the transportation system, which can lead to a better balance of the Brazilian transportation matrix.

The neutralization of suspicious objects by a conventional explosion in public places seems to be an option often considered by security forces. A radiological dispersive device (RDD) uses a radioactive material coupled to an amount of conventional explosive in order to contaminate an area. Extremist groups may take advantage of such protocol by leaving the radioactive material in public places to provoke suspicion, thus leading to the neutralization by an explosion, which in turn creates a RDD event. This work aims to discuss the influence of such a protocol in the radiological threat by means of computational simulation. The total maximum effective dose equivalent (TEDE Max), the Pasquill–Gifford atmospheric stability classes (PG classes), and the potentially affected population size were evaluated. The results consider two radionuclides Cs-137 and Sr-90. The findings allow us to infer that TEDE Max and surface contamination are strongly dependent on the PG classes. In addition, the affected population size depends on the plume size, which seems to be independent of the radionuclide, but not of the PG classes. Therefore, PG classes play a key role in the radiological threat. The findings may be of value to support decisions when facing an event.