Estimates of methane emissions and comparison with gas mass burned in CDM action in a large landfill in Eastern Amazon.

This work studied the methane gas production of the Aura landfill, the official destination of all Municipal Solid Waste of the Metropolitan Region of Belem (Brazil), operational until 2015. In 2007, the Aura Landfill was equipped with a landfill gas burning system in a CDM/UNFCCC project, with reported measured volumes of burned methane gas. These volumes were used to retrieve the methane generation potential (L0) and the decay rate (k) parameters of single-phase, first order landfill emission model, yielding L0=(61.0±6.6)mCH43/MgMSW and k=(0.25±0.07)yr-1. To model the Aura landfill, local gravimetric waste composition and local per capita waste production studies were collected, and the IPCC first order multiphase model was used. For the generation potential, observation and model are consistent, but for the decay rate, observations provide a 39% higher value, suggesting that the methane production from deposited MSW is occurring much faster than predicted by the IPCC model. Applying the retrieved parameters for the whole landfill's lifetime, the total produced methane is estimated to be 497 Gg (ranging from 444 Gg to 550 Gg), of this total 48% may have been emitted before the implementation of the collection system, indicating that it was implemented too late, and 81% may have been emitted before the closing date, with only 19% to be emitted after the end of operations. Subtracting the total methane volume burned in the CDM Activity, the Aura landfill may have emitted on total from 9.4 to 9.8 Tg of CO2 equivalent.

Anfíbios anuros associados a corpos d'água do sudoeste do estado de Goiás, Brasil / Anuran amphibians associated to water bodies in Southwest of Goiás State (Brazil)

O Cerrado é o segundo maior bioma brasileiro e é considerado um dos mais importantes hotspots de biodiversidade. Neste bioma foram registradas cerca de 150 espécies de anuros, das quais 30 por cento são endêmicas. Entretanto, existem muitas áreas ainda não inventariadas, nas quais não se conhece quase nada sobre a diversidade de anuros. Assim, neste estudo apresentamos informações referentes a anurofauna do sudoeste do Estado de Goiás (Brasil Central), a qual vem sendo modificada principalmente pela agropecuária. Nesta região, 45 corpos d'água foram amostrados entre os meses de novembro/2007 a fevereiro/2008 e novembro/2008 a março/2009, localizados próximos a plantações de soja, cana-de-açúcar, pastagem e vegetação nativa. No total, foram registrados adultos e girinos de 36 espécies de anuros, a maioria comum de áreas abertas. As curvas de acumulação de espécies, tanto para adultos quanto para girinos, apresentaram a formação de uma assíntota, o que indica uma baixa probabilidade de registro de novas espécies mesmo com a amostragem de outros corpos d'água. Nesta área com forte influência de impactos agrícolas, a riqueza encontrada representa aproximadamente 1/4 do total de espécies conhecidas para o bioma Cerrado.

The Cerrado is the second largest biome in Brazil and is considered one of most important among the biodiversity hotspots. In this biome can be found about 150 anurans species, from which 30 percent are endemic. However, there are many Cerrado areas that have little information gathered about the anuran biodiversity. Thus, in this study we present the result of an inventory of anurans species from the southwest region of Goiás State (Central Brazil). In this region, we sampled 45 water bodies, located near soybean and sugar-cane cultures, pastures and natural vegetation, from November/2007 to February/2008 and from November/2008 to March/2009. Altogether, adults and tadpoles of 36 species were registered, with the majority of species registered in association to open areas. The rarefied curve of species richness show an asymptote formation, which indicates that the chance to add species to the inventory is low, even with additional habitats sampling. Therefore, our results reveal high species richness in the present sampled region, which represented almost one fourth of all species found in Cerrado.