Shrubs growing in former burnt areas play two diametrically opposed roles. On the one hand, they protect the soil against erosion, promote rainwater infiltration, carbon sequestration and support animal life. On the other hand, after the shrubs’ density reaches a particular size for the canopy to touch and the shrubs’ biomass accumulates more than 10 Mg ha⁻¹, they create the necessary conditions for severe wild fires to occur and spread. The creation of a methodology suitable to identify former burnt areas and to track shrubs’ regrowth within these areas in a regular and a multi temporal basis would be beneficial. The combined use of geographical information systems (GIS) and remote sensing (RS) supported by dedicated land survey and field work for data collection has been identified as a suitable method to manage these tasks. The free access to Sentinel images constitutes a valuable tool for updating the GIS project and for the monitoring of regular shrubs’ accumulated biomass. Sentinel 2 VIS-NIR images are suitable to classify rural areas (overall accuracy = 79.6% and Cohen’s K = 0.754) and to create normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) images to be used in association to allometric equations for the shrubs’ biomass estimation (R² = 0.8984, p-value < 0.05 and RMSE = 4.46 Mg ha⁻¹). Five to six years after a forest fire occurrence, almost all the former burnt area is covered by shrubs. Up to 10 years after a fire, the accumulated shrubs’ biomass surpasses 14 Mg ha⁻¹. The results described in this paper demonstrate that Northwest Portugal presents larger shrubland areas and greater shrub biomass accumulation (average 18.3 Mg ha⁻¹) than the Northeast (average 7.7 Mg ha⁻¹) of the country.

With the increase of forest fires in Portugal in recent decades, a significant part of woodlands is being converted into shrubland areas. Background: From an ecological point of view, woodlands and shrublands play an essential role, as they not only prevent soil erosion and desertification, but also contribute to soil protection, habitat preservation and restoration, and also increased biodiversity for carbon sequestration. Concerning the shrublands, the assessment of their biomass is essential for evaluating the fuel load and forest fire behavior and also beneficial for obtaining estimates of carbon and biomass for energy use. Methods: In this study, we collected data about the potential shrub biomass accumulation along fifteen years in former burnt areas within North Portugal. Results: The achieved results showed that for a post-fire period ranging from one to 15 years, the accumulated shrubs’ biomass ranged from 0.12 up to 28.88 Mg ha⁻¹. The model developed to estimate the shrub biomass using the time after a fire (age) as a predictor variable presented a high adjustment to data (p-value of the F statistic <0.01 and R² = 0.89), allowing estimating shrub biomass regeneration within former burnt areas with an RMSE of 3.31 Mg ha⁻¹. Conclusions: This paper provides practical information on the availability and assessment of shrub biomass in North Portugal, highlighting the suitability of shrubs as potential sources of biomass.

This paper presents a system that is under development to support forest fires fighting in Agueda municipality. This system is mainly based on information technology, in contrast to the dynamic which is currently used in this municipality. The system consists of three separate modules, an WebGIS application and two applications for mobile devices (one for the land vehicles and the other to air vehicles). One of the biggest concerns about the system is that all data used is real and updated, but also that the main features of the application are used in real time by the main actors of civil protection: fire department, city hall and Republican National Guard. The implementation of the project is still at an early stage, however the tests performed so far have revealed that the system is viable and is expected to be an effective help in solving the problem of forest fires in the municipality.

This work presents the results of the analysis conducted to 844 job advertisements for secretarial/office management vacancies published in Portugal in the newspaper Jornal Expresso (paper format) between 1978 and 2018. It aims to identify these professionals' profile, from an employer's perspective, over the course of the last four decades. Presently, secretarial/office management professionals have responsibilities and attributes that differ significantly from those of the past. With this premise in mind, this work aims, on the one hand, at identifying the evolution of the age, gender, training and experience requirements published in the analysed job ads; on the other hand, it seeks to track the spectrum of skills - both technical and transversal - considered as most relevant by employers. The results confirm that fundamental changes have occurred, namely with regards to the sought professional categories, the professionals' gender, and the range of tools and techniques necessary to accomplish the required tasks, especially after the introduction and progressive demand of computer skills. Moreover, the set of the most valued transversal skills has undergone significant changes as well.

Information about the paper titled "PEDAGOGICAL PRACTICES IN HIGHER EDUCATION: IMPROVING STUDENTS’ COMPETENCES THROUGH CROSS-CURRICULAR PROBLEM-SOLVING ACTIVITIES" at IATED Digital Library