Assessment of meteorological settings on air quality modeling system-a proposal for UN-SDG and regulatory studies in non-homogeneous regions in Brazil.

Air quality models are essential tools to meet the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN-SDG) because they are effective in guiding public policies for the management of air pollutant emissions and their impacts on the environment and human health. Despite its importance, Brazil still lacks a guide for choosing and setting air quality models for regulatory purposes. Based on this, the current research aims to assess the combined WRF/CALMET/CALPUFF models for representing SO2 dispersion over non-homogeneous regions as a regulatory model for policies in Brazilian Metropolitan Regions to satisfy the UN-SDG. The combined system was applied to the Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Area (RJMA), which is known for its physiographic complexity. In the first step, the WRF model was evaluated against surface-observed data. The local circulation was underestimated, while the prevailing observational winds were well represented. In the second step, it was verified that all CALMET three meteorological configurations performed better for the most frequent wind speed classes so that the largest SO2 concentrations errors occurred during light winds. Among the meteorological settings in WRF/CALMET/CALPUFF, the joined use of observed and modeled meteorological data yielded the best results for the dispersion of pollutants. This result emphasizes the relevance of meteorological data composition in complex regions with unsatisfactory monitoring given the inherent limitations of prognostic models and the excessive extrapolation of observed data that can generate distortions of reality. This research concludes with the proposal of the WRF/CALMET/CALPUFF air quality regulatory system as a supporting tool for policies in the Brazilian Metropolitan Regions in the framework of the UN-SDG, particularly in non-homogeneous regions where steady-state Gaussian models are not applicable.

Geotechnologies as decision support strategies for the identification of fire-susceptible areas in Rio de Janeiro State.

Forest fires have global, regional, and local socioeconomic and environmental consequences, with negative effects on ecosystem services, air quality, population health, and other relevant aspects, emphasizing their significance in the context of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The study identified areas in the Rio de Janeiro State (RJS) with varying degrees of susceptibility to fire focis using remote sensing data derived from topographic, anthropogenic, meteorological, and hydrological factors based on seasonality and integrated into geographic information systems. The analytical hierarchy process was used as a method of integration and normalized hierarchy of variables, generating susceptibility maps in the annual, summer, and winter periods in the RJS's hydrographic regions (HR), with the application of the associated chi-square test to records of fire focis from the AQUA satellite, period 2003 to 2017, without methodological variation for data acquisition, whose susceptibility was classified as very low to very high. The results show that the years with the most fire foci in the adopted time series are 2007 and 2014, with a peak in September and a fall from October onwards. According to the susceptibility map, 9% of the RJS is highly susceptible during the annual period, with HR-IX being especially vulnerable. In the summer, 0.2% of RJS is extremely vulnerable, while 32% is highly vulnerable in the winter, with 6402 km2 of HR-IX areas being extremely vulnerable. A statistical correlation was discovered between the chi-square test and susceptible areas. This work contributes as a decision-making tool in fire planning and emergency response, with the potential to assist control bodies (city halls, civil defense, environmental protection bodies, health systems) in the local and regional context in the assessment, analysis, and management of these phenomena.

Caracterização do regime de vento em superfície na Região Metropolitana do Rio de Janeiro / Characterization of surface wind regime in the Metropolitan Area of Rio de Janeiro

O trabalho aborda a caracterização do regime de vento em diversos setores da Região Metropolitana do Rio de Janeiro (RMRJ), evidenciando a influência do ciclo diário e dos aspectos topográficos nas circulações locais. Na avaliação do padrão de vento foram utilizados dados horários provenientes de estações meteorológicas automáticas de superfície, organizados em gráficos de frequência de vento para o ciclo diário. Finalmente, os resultados evidenciam a modulação da circulação local de acordo com a atuação do sistema de brisa marítima-terrestre. Pode-se destacar a ocorrência de elevados percentuais de calmaria na estação Afonsos, caracterizando-a como uma região de estagnação, influenciada principalmente pelas feições topográficas locais. Este estudo disponibiliza um importante detalhamento da orientação e frequência do vento próximo à superfície, oferecendo subsídios adicionais às autoridades públicas para o aperfeiçoamento de suas políticas de gestão ambiental para a região.

This study deals with the characterization of surface wind regime in several sectors of Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Region, and demonstrates the influence of daily wind cycle and the topographic aspects in the local wind circulations. For the evaluation of the wind pattern, it was used hourly data from different automatic surface meteorological stations. Afterward, these hourly data were organized in daily wind frequency. The results clearly showed that the modulation of local wind circulation follows the sea-land breeze system. It was remarkable the high percentage of calm wind conditions observed in the Afonsos weather station, which characterizes this station as a stagnation region influenced essentially by its local topographic features. Finally, this study provides large database on the direction and frequency of surface wind in the Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Region, which could be used by the public authorities to improve their environmental management policy for the region.