Planning and environmental quality

Environmental planning is an organized process of production and systematization of data and information, built from reflections on socio-environmental problems and potential in a region. The sustainability of environmental quality is a focus of convergence of environmental sciences, which produce subsidies for adequate environmental planning.

Amid the complexity of environmental problems, environmental quality indicators
provide a robust instrument for environmental planning.

The sustainable development of regions that have low levels of human development allied to environmental degradation represents a major challenge for environmental sciences. This is a characteristic problem of the State of Maranhão and requires a systemic view to evaluate the environment both in qualitative and quantitative terms.

Thus, it is necessary to unite the spatial and temporal dimensions in environmental studies and, in this aspect, geotechnologies allied to the measurements of environmental variables in the field also provide the construction and application of conceptual models that help the spatiotemporal understanding of the evolution of the environment.

Once the state and temporal evolution of environmental indicators has been evaluated, it is possible to quantify the pressure that human activities exert on environmental quality. Parameters related to the quality of air, water, soil, vegetation, as well as the quality of human life provide subsidies for environmental planning.

This Line aims to produce scientific subsidies for environmental planning in different ecosystems, through the evaluation and management of environmental indicators selected according to the nature of each environmental problem, as well as the specifics of each ecosystem.

The critical choice of this set of indicators is a fundamental skill for the ability to manage the environment and dialogues with the Health and Environment Line, in order to propose the management of environmental indicators as a subsidy to assess environmental changes. These indicators are related to human health through environmental microbiology, environmental sanitation, molecular biology and environmental genetics.

This set of data supports the assessment, development and choice of technologies to solve environmental problems, as well as indicating the need to develop new environmental technologies suited to the regional and local reality. In this way, computational modeling provides subsidies for data treatment in order to simulate environmental processes through possible variations in environmental conditions.

health and environment

The environmental balance resulting from the feedback of systems responsible for the atmosphere-biosphere interaction has a direct impact on human health, which must be protected and prioritized. This means that components such as the climate determine other components, directly impacting human health. An example of this is the increase or decrease in the number of disease vectors, depending on climatic seasonality or even changes in local temperature. Another typical example of the state of Maranhão is the increase in respiratory diseases as a result of fires in the western region of the state.

Historically, studies indicate that major problems related to human health are related to environmental conditions. Interdisciplinary areas such as environmental sanitation provide qualitative and quantitative tools for the management of vital processes for society, related to supply and treatment
water, effluent treatment, among others.

Maranhão has deep environmental problems in this area. According to the 2011 Sanitation Atlas of the Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE), while 78.4% of the municipalities in the State of São Paulo offer sewage collection and treatment systems to the population, in Maranhão this percentage is only 1.4%. This same source reports that only 6.5% of the municipalities have sewage networks. In this aspect, the State of Maranhão presents great vulnerability
in relation to Diseases Related to Inadequate Environmental Sanitation (Drsai).

Therefore, the objective of this Line will be to evaluate the environmental indicators that determine the quality of human health and, in this way, provide subsidies for the design, choice and evaluation of technologies that allow improving the quality conditions of human health.

This Line dialogues with the Planning and Environmental Quality line by the possibility of using environmental quality indicators in the assessment of environmental health problems. The performance of this line will be directed to the investigation of the relationships between the different biotic environments (atmosphere, water, vegetation and soil) and chemical, epidemiological and toxicological aspects related to human health and its interactions with the environment.

In addition to these aspects, responses will also be investigated.