Producción Científica

The effects of climate change have a negative impact on urban areas and projections indicate these impacts will worsen in the coming years. In this context, cities need to adapt to the adverse effects of climate change. Potential solutions proposed in the literature for this adaptation include the use of Ecosystem Services. However, of the large volume of publications, few articles provide a structured analysis of the contribution and use of the concept in urban planning and adaptation to climate change. The objective of the present study was to review the literature on the subject and provide a structured analysis of the state of the art, main authors, countries, and references addressing the topic, together with key concepts emerging from this research, and challenges for future studies. Thus, a hybrid method of bibliometric analysis and in-depth reading of key articles held on the Web of Science electronic database was applied. The results revealed a growing scientific interest in the subject, a trend of greater interdisciplinarity in research, use of different evaluation methods, both economic and non-economic, and a systemic perspective that approaches sustainability not only as an environmental problem, but as a complex phenomenon.

Apart from many social and economic problems worldwide, the COVID-19 pandemic has also led to sudden halt in face-to-face climate-related meetings. Moreover, it has also negatively influenced the works related to the preparations for the sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and organizing the 26th Conference of the Parties of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), namely COP26 to be held in Glasgow, which was postponed to November 2021. This article presents a global study undertaken among UNFCCC contact points and other climate experts, to ascertain the impacts of the pandemic on the implementation of SDG13 and UNFCCC processes. The methodological approach entails an bibliometric analysis, online survey, and authors’ expert judgment. Results of the bibliometric analysis show that the most common terms associated with this theme are COVID-19, climate change, CO2, energy, “pandemic-related,” and “adaptation-related.” In addition, the survey revealed some difficulties associated with online participation in the processes from many developing countries. The study concluded that there is negative impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the UNFCCC process, more minor government priorities regarding climate action, loss of traction of the process, and a challenge to achieve the Paris Agreement, with less significant support from the respondents from less developed countries. The findings suggest that urgent action is needed, to make up for the lost time, and place climate issues more prominently on the global agenda.

The main objective of this research is to analyze the most relevant aspects of the management of the organic fraction of municipal solid waste (OFMSW) and the Sustainable and Circular Production Models (SCPMs) in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). The bibliometric method was used for the analysis of 190 studies obtained from the Scopus and Latin America and The Caribbean on Health Sciences (LILACS) databases. The systematic review provided information on the main research approaches: identification and characterization; quantification; strategic and interdisciplinary management; and processes for treatment or valorization. Finally, an evaluation of public policies and strategies was performed. The results show that Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia have the highest number of publications on OFMSW. The findings also indicate that both research and policy strategies on SCPMs prioritize bioenergy and biofuels as the leading alternatives for the valorization of OFMSW. It also reflects the relevance of the Circular Economy (CE) and Bioeconomy (BE) as the main drivers of waste recovery and/or valorization in LAC. These aspects are of great interest to governments that are still in the process of implementing SCPMs. However, for those more advanced in this area, it provides valuable information on progress, policy effectiveness, and future actions for improvement.

Visual environmental aesthetics as a combinatorial output of a mathematical model can enhance public acceptance of forest activities and increase the perception of sustainability of forest enterprises. This article provides a comprehensive review of the state of the art in landscape management in forest areas worldwide. In forest planning, little research has examined how the visual impact management on wood production can be compatible with the economic viability of forest enterprises. With this review, we seek to contextualize the problem, listing the challenges, trends, and advances achieved recently. The first part of the review is devoted to considerations about the following: (i) landscape management in forested areas, with a history of the landscape planning in major global regions; and (ii) spatial forest planning, including operational research, forest optimization, and GIS to solve problems at the landscape scale. In the second part, we present a bibliometric survey to statistically examine the growth of the landscape planning between 1980 and 2021. The number of studies related to the topic has increased, especially in the last decade. North America and Europe are the regions with the highest scientific production in forest landscape planning and management. There is still little research dedicated to landscape management in commercially planted forests. The approach in the form of spatial structure, considering the inclusion of multi-objective restrictions and functions, is a desirable evolution in the planning and management of sustainable forest plantations.

The global energy system is moving towards a sustainable future with new development strategies that reduce the carbon footprint, such as the water–energy–food (WEF) nexus. Several countries have implemented this link to provide energy and food security while maintaining the relationship between socio-economic progress and environmental protection. The WEF nexus with energy development generates new interest in innovation, and it is important to explore the growth of this academic field. The work aims to analyse the scientific development of the WEF nexus during energy intervention processes, through bibliometric review models, for the knowledge of strategies in a bioenergy framework. The methodology consists of: (i) information compilation (Scopus and Web of Science) and software selection; (ii) information review on scientific production, author keywords and countries; and (iii) focus group analysis in a framework of energy development. The results show scientific interest from 2007, with exponential growth from 2016. The literature presents the interest of implementing the WEF nexus in energy processes to reduce environmental pollution, like ethanol in gasoline, biorefineries, sustainable agriculture, hydropower, and renewable energies (solar, wind). This scientific approach is dominated by the USA, China and the United Kingdom in environmental science, energy and engineering areas, accounting for 60% of the production. The study shows that the WEF nexus approach to energy developments creates new prospects for decision-making in socio-economic, political, and environmental progress.

The water security (WS) approach must be practical and measurable to address water-related challenges. Since 2000, the term Water Security has been regularly mentioned worldwide. However, nowadays, there is still not an accepted definition either for a country or for a region. This research conducted a meta-analysis in the context of renewable water and global water stress, evaluating 873 scientific papers and 26 definitions of WS, using bibliometric network analysis, geographic information systems, and data mining to analyze the state of the art of WS. The results indicate that the definitions of WS have an anthropocentric character. The term economic in the context of WS definitions is the most relevant, and the term ecosystems are the least relevant. Less than 30 % of the definitions analyzed are operationalized through some measurement instrument. The most researched topics on WS are evaluation, management, and impact. On the frontier of study are the issues of water footprint, operation of springs, and awareness. In the world, countries such as the United States, China, and the United Kingdom, with little renewable water in their respective continents, are the ones that publish the most and try to define the concept of WS. Therefore, it is concluded that the main problem of WS definitions worldwide is that they cannot be operationalized in some local indexes, hindering their implementation. In addition, the environment has not been relevant in WS research and definitions.

Landslides, earthquakes, and other natural events can change the landscape and generate human and economic losses, affecting transportation and public service infrastructure. In every geotechnical project, the investigation phase plays a fundamental role in reducing the risk of occurrence and mitigating catastrophes. As a result, governments have created entities to study disasters and identify triggering factors that generate huge losses worldwide. This research aims to conduct a systematic review of the relationship between geotechnics and disasters through bibliometric techniques, scientific production evaluation, and case studies analysis to recognize key topics, methods, and thematic development of the research worldwide. The research methodology consisted of three steps: (1) Database analysis, selection, and combination, (2) bibliometric analysis, and (3) systematic review using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) method. The systematic review with bibliometric analysis collected data from 1973 to 2021, with 1299 academic publications indexed in the Scopus and WoS database. These results indicated a growing trend of annual publications on disasters and their relationship with geotechnical studies, highlighting current issues and technological innovation. The main research trends in disaster risk assessment were topics mainly linked to landslides, earthquakes, liquefaction, and inappropriate analysis models with applications of geophysical methods, laboratory tests, remote sensing, and numerical models.

The organic fraction of municipal solid waste is mainly composed of food waste (FW), and traditional disposal practices for this fraction are generally considered to have negative environmental and economic impacts. However, the organic characteristics of this fraction could also be exploited through the anaerobic digestion of FW (FW-AD), which represents unique advantages, including the reduction of the area required for final disposal and environmental pollution and the same time the generation of renewable energy (mainly methane gas), and a by-product for agricultural use (digestate) due to its high nutrient content. Although approximately 88% of the world’s population resides in areas with temperatures below 8 °C, psychrophilic conditions (temperatures below 20 °C) have hardly been studied, while mesophilic (66%) and thermophilic (27%) ranges were found to be more common than psychrophilic FW-AD (7%). The latter condition could decrease microbial activity and organic matter removal, which could affect biogas production and even make AD unfeasible. To improve the efficiency of the psychrophilic FW-AD process, there are strategies such as: measurement of physical properties as particle size, rheological characteristics (viscosity, consistency index and substrate behavior index), density and humidity, bioaugmentation and co-digestion with other substrates, use of inocula with psychrophilic methanogenic communities, reactor heating and modification of reactor configurations. However, these variables have hardly been studied in the context of psychrophilic conditions and future research should focus on evaluating the influence of these variables on FW-AD under psychrophilic conditions. Through a bibliometric analysis, this paper has described and analyzed the FW-AD process, with a focus on the psychrophilic conditions ([removed]

Global pork production has an annual growth of approximately 2.1%, and its economic and environmental impact are related with the treatment of waste in the production chain. There is little evidence of research advances to generate alternatives for using these wastes. The lack of research related to microalgae cultivation using digestate produced by porcine residues generates negative environmental impact, inadequate and inefficient technologies, low recovery and use of waste and loss of value and competitiveness in the market. The available literature focuses mainly on the treatment of anaerobic digestion liquid effluents for the removal of components, but not on the generation of value-added products. Therefore, there is a need to collect the available information, analyze it and propose other new methodologies. This article presents the information obtained from conducting a systematic review of the literature with a bibliometric and a comparative analysis; achieving an analysis of the temporal and geographical distribution, the main topics, the most influential players, the degree of maturity of the research and different strategies collected for microalgae-based swine manure digestate treatment. In this way, it was possible to capture an overview of the current state of the development of research focused on the use of digestate for the cultivation of microalgae, visualizing important aspects as the evolution of publications, identifying China and USA as the main players in research, biomass and wastewater as potential topics also Spirulina, Astaxanthin and beta-carotene as the main products based on microalgae. Thus, achieving an structure, organized and synthesized landscape of scientific and technological knowledge available for the proposal of investigations that allow the use of anaerobic digestion liquid effluents as cultivation medium for microalgae.