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In the São Brás de Alportel municipality, water scarcity poses a significant constraint on agricultural activities. This study utilises Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographical Information Systems (GISs) to identify existing irrigated areas, delineate catchment basins, and select the most suitable sites for the installation of new surface water reservoirs. First, the principal territorial components were characterised, including physical elements (climate, geology, soils, and hydrography) and anthropogenic infrastructure (road network and high-voltage power lines). Summer Sentinel-2 satellite imagery was then analysed to calculate the Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), enabling the identification and classification of irrigated agricultural parcels. Flow directions and accumulations derived from Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) facilitated the characterisation of 38 micro-catchments and the extraction of 758 km of the drainage network. The siting criteria required a minimum setback of 100 m from roads and high-voltage lines, excluded farmland currently in use, and favoured mountainous areas with low permeability. Only 18.65% (2854 ha) of the municipality is agricultural land, of which just 4% (112 ha) currently benefits from irrigation. The NDVI-based classification achieved a Kappa coefficient of 0.88, indicating high reliability. Three sites demonstrated adequate storage capacity, with embankments measuring 8 m, 10 m, and 12 m in height. At one of these sites, two reservoirs arranged in a cascade were selected as an alternative to a single structure exceeding 12 m in height, thereby reducing environmental and landscape impact. The reservoirs fill between October and November in an average rainfall year and between October and January in a dry year, maintaining a positive annual water balance and allowing downstream plots to be irrigated by gravity. The methodology proved to be objective, replicable, and essential for the sustainable expansion of irrigation within the municipality.

To mitigate the impacts of urbanisation and the attendant surface sealing, appropriate measures are required when adapting urban spaces and drainage infrastructure. In this context, the deployment of Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDSs) has emerged as a viable alternative, delivering highly positive outcomes by enhancing hydrological, hydraulic and landscape performance while restoring ecosystem services to the community. This study evaluates the relative performance of five SuDS typologies, green roofs, bioretention cells, infiltration trenches, permeable pavements, and rain barrels, implemented in a 64 ha subbasin of the metropolitan area of Barcelona, Spain. Using Giswater integrated with the SWMM, the stormwater drainage network was modelled under multiple rainfall scenarios. Performance was assessed using two qualitative indicators, the junction index (Ij) and the conduit index (Ic), which measure surcharge levels in manholes and pipes, respectively. The results show that SuDS implementation affecting 42.8% of the drained area can enhance network performance by 35.6% and reduce flooded junctions by 67%. Among the typologies, rain barrels and bioretention cells were the most effective. The study concludes that SuDS construction, supported by open-source tools and performance-based indicators, constitutes a replicable and technically robust strategy for mitigating the effects of surface sealing and increasing urban resilience.

The selection of indicators for the Observatory of Sustainability of the Algarve Region for Tourism (OBSERVE), poses challenges, namely which indicators are relevant to stakeholders and how to assure that information is available. To support the selection of the environmental, sociocultural, economic and institutional indicators, an engagement process was designed and applied, which included meetings with stakeholders, a workshop and an online survey. The results showed that both workshop and online surveys reflected, in general, similar opinions, thus allowing the selecting of the sustainable development indicators for the Algarve region. Additionally, the results showed that nearly 75% of the indicators can be obtained from national statistics and, therefore, can be used on the OBSERVE project, assuring a quick flow of information. As limitations, it is important to mention that the other 25% will need further development, in order to provide data for indicators, like carbon management and client satisfaction. With this approach, the observatory will survey and evaluate the sustainable development of the region (status and trends), based on indicators that answer to the strategic needs of system’s main users, with social and economic implications, i.e., public institutions, economic agents, tourists, local communities and residents.

The Algarve region, located in the south of Portugal, is a well-known tourism destination that seeks to be sustainable and competitive. The local administration looks to establish a collaborative network, where stakeholders take a crucial role. The research aims to appeal to the accommodations and food services stakeholders to have a shared vision of the issues and priorities related to sustainable tourism development. Their perception is a critical factor in making decisions regarding the region’s competitiveness. Algarve’s two major and leading associations of the tourism supply sector AIHSA and AHETA were invited to participate in the study. Based on the responses of an online questionnaire, an artificial intelligence algorithm was applied to the data to identify the common and divergent aspects. The conceptual model developed is based on a simplified model of psychological ownership. The results highlight a convergent perspective regarding sustainability challenges, namely, natural resources and biodiversity, safety, and supply chain. However, hotels and restaurants do not reflect the same perception regarding sustainability initiatives, e-tourism, or free internet access. These divergences are essential results since they indicated which issues require local authorities’ priority intervention.

This study analyses the most appropriate methodology to make similarity classifications among the cities of the Algarve (Portugal) according to 105 sustainability indicators monitored with the Observatory of Sustainability of the Algarve Region for Tourism (OBSERVE). The methodology used to establish the similarities was the cluster analysis with 4 different approaches which reduced the dimensions of the data set: total approach, pillar approach, subject area approach, and indicator approach. By combining the approaches, a total of 620 different cluster analyses were performed. The results reflected that the data analysis approaches with less dimensions were those that performed the best groups among cities. In this sense, the approaches with a high number of indicators (e.g., the total or the pillar approach) were characterised by misclassifying cities in more than 30% of the indicators. Thus, the most acceptable cluster analysis approach was that with a low number of indicators. Through this approach, it was possible to make correct groups of the sustainability level of the cities of the Algarve. These results provided an appropriate methodology for the decision-making regarding the sustainability of a region and could be extrapolated to other regions to assess sustainability or environmental indicators.

There has been increasing pressure on water resources in cities due to the proliferation of urban green areas. In the Mediterranean climate, only a small part of the plants’ water needs is supplied by rainfall during the winter months. Thus, in Algarve (Portugal) irrigation of the urban landscapes is required almost all year round. The aims of this study were to evaluate the maintenance of the urban landscapes of São Brás de Alportel (Algarve) during a year, based on the characterization of the vegetation of the urban gardens, the climate data, the analysis of the irrigation systems, the calculation of the plants water requirements and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). By crossing all this information, it was possible to understand if the current maintenance level is the most suitable for sustainable irrigated urban landscapes. In most of the gardens, it was possible to establish a relationship between the gross irrigation water requirements and NDVI. In general, the NDVI allowed us to study the urban landscape, through the monthly observation of the differences in the appearance and development of the vegetation.

The University of Algarve in consortium with Saint-Gobain Weber Portugal and Cristal Construções – Materiais e Obras de Construção Civil is developing a new concept of sustainable swimming pool which is more energy efficient with less environmental footprint and with reduced construction and maintenance costs. The specific objectives are the use of recycled materials, the reduction of the CO2 emissions in the life cycle of the construction materials, the reduction of the water losses, the use of renewable energy from the sun by exploiting the thermal inertia of the materials surrounding the swimming pool and the reduction the energy consumption during the structure lifetime by increasing the durability and reducing the number of reparations. To this end, new formulations of concrete and mortar are being developed and tested in our laboratories. They incorporate recycled materials and also materials with reduction of CO2 emissions during the production phase. An important concern is related with the development of an innovative system for the use of renewable energy from the area surrounding the swimming pool. One of the outputs of this project will be the construction of a semi-scale prototype of a swimming pool with dimensions of 10m × 5m × 1.5m, and with the characteristics mentioned above, in order to observe and validate the proposed developments.

The major damage to bridges at river crossings occurs during floods. Damage is caused for various reasons, one of the main reasons being the riverbed scour at bridge foundations. Local scour is induced by the flow field generated around piers typically inserted in movable bed rivers. In Portugal, the tragic accident of Entre-os-Rios was mostly due to scour at one of the bridge piers.Physical and economic reasons lead to bridge foundations composed of a pier column founded on a pile cap, supported by an array of piles. Piers of this configuration are known as complex piers. Frequently the pile cap is completely buried, or in opposition, above the water, being the column or the pile group respectively the only structural element interacting with the flow and causing local scour. In modern bridges it is also common to find structural solutions where the deck is supported directly by pile groups composed of only one alignment, without pile cap. For scouring proposes the structural elements may be considered as single piers, pile groups and pier alignments.The construction of new bridges and the maintenance of thousands of bridges built before the main developments in local scour prediction, amount to costs of billions of Euro and justifies a rigorous prediction of the scour depth, both for economic and safety of human lives reasons.The present study develops an extensive research to systematically map equilibrium scour at single cylindrical piers and pile groups and relate the observations with the characteristic variables of the tests. Special attention is given to the effect of time, relative sediment size and relative approach flow depth at single cylindrical piers and spacing, skew-angle, number of columns and time at pile groups. The pertinence of considering the effect of viscosity it is also assessed.Using dimensional analysis, the following major conclusions are achieved. Regarding single cylindrical piers, it is discussed the required duration of the laboratory tests to render reliable equilibrium scour depths and it is confirmed that equilibrium scour depth decreases with the relative sediment size. It is suggested a predictor for the equilibrium scour depth at single cylindrical piers, function of relative sediment size and relative approach flow depth. The parameters of the equation suggested by Franzetti et al. (1982) are fully characterized rendering a predictor of the scour depth time evolution. Regarding pile groups and pier alignments, it is assessed the effect of the test duration on the equilibrium scour depth and it is confirmed that the spacing factor and the factor for the number of aligned rows recommended in the predictors commonly used in engineering practice are reliable since the scour depth at single cylindrical piers and pile groups remain essentially self-similar in time. The prediction of the equilibrium scour depth at pile groups is improved by the suggestion of a aggregate pile group factor, function of the pile spacing, skew-angle and number of parallel pile alignments. Finally it is revealed that the viscosity may affect scouring in laboratory tests.

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) is not a disease per se but rather a pathophysiological state defined by a mean pulmonary arterial pressure ≥ 25 mmHg. PH occurs in a variety of clinical situations and is associated with a broad spectrum of histological patterns and abnormalities. Because of this diversity, a classification system for PH has been developed to categorize the disease based on common clinical parameters, potential etiologic mechanisms, and treatment responses. Although any form of PH can increase morbidity and mortality, pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH) is a particularly severe and progressive form of PH that frequently leads to right ventricular (RV) failure and premature death. Despite important advances in understanding the mechanisms of PAH and the advent of effective therapies, mortality remains unacceptably high. To understand the epidemiology and natural history of PAH, we conducted a prospective, multicenter registry on incident patients in Portugal. The results show a comparable epidemiology to that reported in other European registries, with an estimated incidence of 1.5 per million. However, the patients enrolled in our study were younger and there was a higher proportion of cases with PAH associated with congenital heart disease (PAH-CHD) as compared to those in other European registries. Medium-term prognoses were similar to those reported in other studies. Given the importance of an early diagnosis, we evaluated the utility of exercise echocardiography to screen for PAH. One approach is to identify patients with exercise-induced pulmonary hypertension (EIPH). EIPH can be caused by latent pulmonary vascular disease (pre-capillary EIPH), but it can also be associated to left ventricular (LV) diastolic dysfunction (post-capillary EIPH). As only the pre-capillary form is a precursor of PAH and, consequently, a treatment target for pulmonary vasodilators, we studied the prevalence of EIPH in patients at high risk of developing PAH: systemic sclerosis (SSc) patients. We examined the association between pulmonary pressure and an index of LV dysfunction, E/e’, to test the hypothesis that pre-capillary PH was the cause of EIPH in most SSc patients. Our results demonstrate that half of the enrolled patients developed EIPH, with one-fifth presenting concomitant elevations in E/e’, suggesting post-capillary PH. We concluded that EIPH is related to pre-capillary EIPH in most SSc patients. To better characterize the role of exercise echocardiography, we conducted a systematic review aiming to summarize studies that investigated EIPH using echocardiography in patients with SSc. We found high heterogeneity among the methods, protocols and responses to exercise. Newer, event-based prospective studies with standardized protocols are paramount to accurately characterize exercise echocardiography findings. We next sought to identify new, pre-clinical markers of disease. To address this question, we investigated whether the levels of specific circulating microRNAs (miRs) could constitute reliable markers of diagnostic and prognostic interest for PAH. We found that miR-424(322) was upregulated in PAH patients, and levels of this miR were correlated with disease progression, namely functional class and hemodynamics. In the PAH-CHD subgroup, miR-424(322) levels demonstrated independent prognostic value. Based on bioinformatic analysis, we hypothesized that miR-424(322) targets SMURF1, an E3 ubiquitin ligase that signals the degradation of SMAD1/5, the intracellular mediators of the canonical PAH BMPR-2 pathway. Strikingly, we found that miR-424(322) could positively regulate the BMPR-2 pathway by targeting SMURF1. Furthermore, we used the monocrotaline rat model of PH to investigate changes in circulating miR-424(322) levels throughout disease progression. We demonstrated that miR-424(322) levels vary in a biphasic pattern, with an abrupt, transient increase immediately after the insult and a decrease later in disease progression. SMURF1 displayed an opposite pattern, strongly suggesting in vivo targeting of SMURF1 by miR-424(322). Although regulated and efficient gap junction-modulated communication between cardiomyocytes is critical to ensure cardiac function, not surprisingly, the mechanisms that lead to impaired intercellular communication–typically, increased degradation of Connexin 43 (Cx43)–have been implicated in various heart diseases. Additionally, PAH is associated with RV remodeling-associated degradation of Cx43, a major protein involved in gap junction intercellular communication. However, the enzymes that signal Cx43 degradation in the RV of a diseased heart remain poorly defined. Given that SMURF1 belongs to the NEDD4 family of HECT E3-ubiquitin ligases that are known to catalyze Cx43 ubiquitination, we hypothesized that SMURF1 would constitute an additional E3 ligase involved in the regulation of the Cx43 life cycle. Here we demonstrate that SMURF1 is a novel regulatory player in the Cx43 gap junction life cycle. Therefore, it may modulate cardiomyocyte function and have a putative role in the progression of RV hypertrophy. In summary, our work highlights the critical role of miR-424(322) as a common mediator of the crosstalk between BMPR-2 signaling and intercellular communication mechanisms, ascribing this miR an important role in diseases associated with elevated pulmonary pressures, making it a very promising target.

O presente trabalho visa fundamentalmente apresentar uma contribuição para o estudo de cheias em bacias hidrográficas. O estudo e compreensão dos fenómenos que provocam uma cheia são fundamentais para a segurança das populações e dos bens que se encontram em zonas ciclicamente inundáveis. Estes locais são preferenciais para a fixação de população, tanto pela via de comunicação fluvial, como pela fertilidade dos solos aluvionares. O aspecto mais relevante deste trabalho consiste em apresentar um modelo de precipitação/escoamento superficial que toma em consideração o fenómeno distribuído em toda a área da bacia, sendo a metodologia válida para todos os pontos da bacia, encosta ou linha de água, conseguindo prever quais as modificações induzidas na relação precipitação/escoamento superficial devido a modificações na bacia. Possibilitando uma abordagem de controlo de cheias, não pela intervenção no leito como é usual, mas pelo reordenamento da bacia, práticas de conservação do solo e alteração do seu uso. O modelo baseia-se em equações fisicas para modelar os fenómenos da infiltração e do escoamento superficial. Para modelar o escoamento superficial o modelo desenvolvido emprega a equação da onda cinemática. Esta equação é resolvida por dois métodos numéricos distintos, por forma a detectar acumulação de erros e problemas de convergência. A rede hidrográfica é alimentada por caudais de percurso que são determinados pelo excesso de precipitação, numa visão do escoamento superficial descrita por Horton, 1933. O excesso de precipitação é função da intensidade de precipitação e das características do solo. A modelação da infiltração é efectuada por dois métodos distintos, a equação de Green-Ampt e o método da Curva Número do Soil Conservation Service, para que os resultados possam ser controlados e aferidos mais facilmente. O modelo desenvolvido é aplicado á bacia hidrográfica da Ribeira de Alportel, exemplo que serve para aferir os dados por retro-análise, comparando os resultados obtidos pela simulação com os valores de campo observados na estação hidrométrica de Bodega. Deste modo, é possível prever para possíveis cenários de alteração das condições da bacia hidrográfica qual a futura resposta da ribeira a eventos meteorológicos.