Socioeconomic inequalities and the surface heat island distribution in Santiago, Chile.

Surface urban heat islands (SUHIs) are an important socio-environmental problem associated with large cities, such as the Santiago Metropolitan Area (SMA), in Chile. Here, we analyze daytime and nighttime variations of SUHIs for each season of the year during the period 2000-2020. To evaluate socioeconomic inequities in the distribution of SUHIs, we establish statistical relationships with socioeconomic status, land price, and urban vegetation. We use the MODIS satellite images to obtain the land surface temperatures and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) through the Google Earth Engine platform. The results indicate more intense SUHIs during the nighttime in the eastern sector, coinciding with higher socioeconomic status and larger green areas. This area during the day is cooler than the rest of the city. The areas with lower and middle socioeconomic status suffer more intense SUHIs (daytime and nighttime) and match poor environmental and urban qualities. These results show the high segregation of SMA. Urban planning is subordinated to land prices with a structure maintained over the study period. The lack of social-climate justice is unsustainable, and such inequalities may be exacerbated in the context of climate change. Thus, these results can contribute to the planning of the SMA.

Crossing a critical threshold: Accelerated and widespread land use changes drive recent carbon and nitrogen dynamics in Vichuquén Lake (35°S) in central Chile.

Global afforestation/deforestation processes (e.g., Amazon deforestation and Europe afforestation) create new anthropogenic controls on carbon cycling and nutrient supply that have not been fully assessed. Here, we use a watershed-lake dynamics approach to investigate how human-induced land cover changes have altered nutrient transference during the last 700 years in a mediterranean coastal area (Vichuquén Lake). We compare our multiproxy reconstruction with historical documentation and use satellite images to reconstruct land use/cover changes for the last 45 years. Historical landscape changes, including those during the indigenous settlements, Spanish conquest, and the Chilean Republic up to mid-20th century did not significantly alter sediment and nutrient fluxes to the lake. In contrast, the largest changes in the lake-watershed system occurred in the mid-20th century and particularly after the 1980s-90s and were characterized by a large increase in total nitrogen and organic carbon fluxes as well as negative shifts in sediment δ15N and δ13C values. This shift was coeval with the largest land cover transformation in the Vichuquén watershed, as native forests nearly disappeared while anthropogenic tree plantations expanded up to 60% of the surface area.

Recent wildfires in Central Chile: Detecting links between burned areas and population exposure in the wildland urban interface.

Wildfires are gaining importance in the Mediterranean regions owing to climate change and landscape changes due to the increasing closeness between urban areas and forests prone to wildfires. We analysed the dry season wildfire occurrences in the Mediterranean region of Central Chile (32°S-39°30' S) between 2000 and 2017, using satellite images to detect burned areas, their landscape metrics and the land use and covers (vegetal) pre-wildfire, in order to determine the population living in areas that may be affected by wildfires. The existing regulations in western Mediterranean countries (Portugal, Spain, France, and Italy) were used to identify and define the wildland-urban interface (WUI) areas, quantifying the people inhabiting them and estimating the population affected by burned areas from 2001 to 2017. We used the Google Earth Engine to process MODIS products and extract both burned areas and land covers. We detected that 25% of the urban population inhabits WUI areas (i.e. Biobío, Araucanía and Valparaíso regions) where the urban population exposed to burned areas exceeds 40%. Most of the land use and land covers affected by wildfires are anthropogenic land covers, classified as savannas, croplands, evergreen broadleaf forests and woody savannas, representing >70% of the burned areas. Urban areas show only 0.6% of the burned surface from 2001 to 2017. We estimate that 55,680 people are potentially affected by wildfires, and 50% of them are in just one administrative region. These results show the imperative need for public policies as a regulating force for establishing WUI areas with the purpose of identifying wildfire risk in urban areas, such as establishing prevention methods as firewalls and prescribed fires.