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Community Participation in Disaster Risk Management Due to Tailings Dam Failures: The Case of Conceição Do Mato Dentro (MG)

Publication . Louzada, Daniela Martins; Mendonça, Marcos Barreto de; Zêzere, José

The aim of the present research is to analyze community participation in disaster risk management due to tailings dam failures (DRM-TDF). Conceição do Mato Dentro, Minas Gerais State (Brazil) was used as case study. The aims of the study are to help developing more effective DRM-TDF strategies and to strengthen community participation in decision making, and in mapping and categorizing vulnerabilities (criticality and support capacity) by assessing current practices and prioritizing future strategies. Semistructured questionnaires were applied to community leaders and open interviews were carried out with DRM experts for information collection purpose. The collected responses were categorized based on vulnerabilities by taking into account criticality (communities) and support capacity (public management and mining entrepreneurs). SWOT analysis identified “Weaknesses” (criticality) and “Threats” (support capacity), whereas Pareto analysis highlighted the most critical aspects. The results indicate that public policies and the Brazilian legal framework have made limited contributions toward achieving the Sendai Framework guidelines and the Sustainable Development Goals. A review of current practices is necessary to safeguard the rights of affected communities through their meaningful participation in decision-making processes.

2025Journal article

Open access

Introducing biosensing techniques in urban geography fieldwork activities with students

Publication . Paiva, Daniel; Mantey, Dorota; Silva, Márcia; Ferreira, Daniela; Boavida-Portugal, Inês; Cachinho, Herculano

While biosensing is becoming a popular tool among urban geogra-phers to address the emotional experience of the urban environ-ment, it is also posing significant challenges, as its applicationdemands expertise on technology and human physiology that isnot part of regular curricula in geography courses. Despite this,there is little exploration of how to teach biosensing to urbangeography students. This paper responds to this gap by exploringhow undergraduate urban geography students respond to theintroduction of biosensing techniques in urban geography field-work. Empirically, we draw on two case studies in a European(Warsaw, Poland) and a South American (Cuiaba, Brazil) context.Our findings show how the introduction of biosensing leverageda greater engagement with the body-environment relation in urbanspace, but also sparked a series of technical, methodological, andanalytical challenges for students. With this, we contribute to cur-rent knowledge on the introduction of mobile technologies ingeographical fieldwork. We conclude the paper by providingrecommendations for biosensing training for geographers andfuture research paths on this topic.

2025Journal article

Restricted access

Anthropogenic landscape change and amphibian diversity in tropical montane biodiversity hotspots: insights from satellite remote sensing in the Madagascar highlands

Publication . Monteiro, Antonio T.; Rosa, Sophia; Andreone, Franco; Ndriantsoa, Serge; Rakotonanahary, Tsanta; Dawson, Jeff; Rabemananjara, Falitiana C. E.; Rabibisoa, Nirhy H. C.; Lucas, Richard; Crottini, Angelica

The magnitude of anthropogenic landscape change in tropical montane biodiversity hotspots and its relationship with biodiversity is a global issue that remains ‘locked-in’ in the broad narrative of tropical change in Africa. Over a montane biodiversity hotspot of Madagascar highlands (Ankaratra Massif), we conducted analysis on land cover change with Landsat satellite sensor data to identify the magnitude of change (1995–2016) and on the habitat change–amphibian diversity relationship to understand links with biodiversity. The results evidenced that 17.8% of the biodiversity hotspot experienced change in land cover in only 20 years. That pressured the already threatened forests, particularly since 2005. Of the total forest area in 1995 (2062.7 ha), 21.5% was cleared by 2016 (1618.3 ha). Changes in forest cover followed a bidirectional pattern. While in the period 1995–2005, forests expanded at a rate of 2.0% year−1 (from 2062.7 to 2524.8 ha), the area declined between 2005 and 2016 at a rate of −4.1% year−1, fourfold the rate reported nationally for Madagascar (−1.1% year−1). Forest-to-shrubland transitions emerged as being of increasing concern to forest integrity. We identifed a signifcant link between habitat change and amphibian diversity, but only for species richness. Counter to expectations, no signifcant relationship was found between species richness and deforestation rates, and between microendemism rates and any of the habitat change variables. Species richness responded to the spatiotemporal variability in vegetation dynamics represented by the standard deviation of the Normalized Diferenced Vegetation Index (NDVI_std). Species richness was strongly negatively related to NDVI_std in the short-term (R2=0.91, p=0.003) and long-term (R2=0.69, p=0.03), increasing where the spatiotemporal variability in NDVI was lower. The magnitude of changes in this biodiversity hotspot suggests that region-specifc assessments are necessary in the context of the tropical change narrative in Africa and should consider conservation policies tailored for local conditions. Reducing deforestation and land conversion rates through a management plan codesigned with local communities is urgent. Habitat change appears to impact on amphibian diversity by altering the functional attributes of the habitat and not just by reducing habitat extent. NDVI_std seems a relevant indirect metric for monitoring such change although other biophysical attributes obtained from satellite sensor data should be integrated and explored.

2025Journal article

Open access

Touristification and the Territories of Gender-Based Violence in Lisbon

Publication . Galavielle, Juliette; Paiva, Daniel

This study contributes towards the burgeoning literature on the negative social consequences of touristification by uncovering the entanglement of gender violence and the territories produced by tourism in Lisbon’s nightlife districts. Drawing upon a perspective of body-territory, this study questions how gender-based violence affects nightlife workers in a touristified urban centre. The research is based on a year-long ethnographic study of women’s workplaces at night, which includes different forms of observation and a set of interviews with women and non-binary workers. The findings of the study describe the territorial dimension of violence for the workers of Lisbon’s tourism-oriented night life, focusing on the asymmetrical repartition of violence, which varies in its nature and intensity according to the neighborhood, the status of the venue, and the workers’ level of experience and authority in the venue. The conclusion of this study underlines the significance of territory for understanding the dynamics of gender-based violence in the nightlife and discusses future avenues of research on the topic.

2025Journal article

Open access

Sentiment analysis using a lexicon-based approach in Lisbon, Portugal

Publication . Betco, Iuria; Ribeiro, Ana Isabel; Vale, David S.; Encalada Abarca, Luis; Viana, Cláudia M.; Rocha, Jorge

Advances in digital sensors and Information flow have created an abundance of data generated by users under various emotional states in different situations. Although this opens up a new facet in spatial research, the large amount of data makes it difficult to analyze and obtain complete and comprehensive information leading to an increase in the demand for sentiment analysis. In this study, the Canadian National Research Council (NRC) of Sentiment and Emotion Lexicon (EmoLex) was used, based on data from the social network Twitter (now X), thus enabling the identification of the places in Lisbon where both positive and negative sentiment prevails. From the results obtained, the Portuguese are happy in spaces associated with leisure and consumption, such as museums, event venues, gardens, shopping centres, stores, and restaurants. The high score of words associated with negative sentiment have more bias, since the lexicon sometimes has difficulties to identify the context in which the word appears, ending up giving it a negative score (e.g., war, terminal).

2025Journal article

Open access