This study delves into the pivotal role that indicators play in designing, assessing, and guiding policies for sustainable urban development. Indicators, encompassing both quantitative and qualitative measures, serve as essential tools in evaluating efforts toward sustainable development, providing a practical and objective means of understanding the complex urban environment. The lack of a robust database is identified as a hindrance to monitoring sustainable development progress, underscoring the importance of comprehensive indicators. The study employs a bibliometric literature review methodology, focusing on smart city and sustainability indicators (SSCI) from 2015 to 2022. A total of 818 articles were narrowed down to 191 through rigorous criteria. The study showcases a growing interest in this field, with the number of articles published experiencing a remarkable 288% increase from 2015 to 2022. China emerges as a focal point, leading in both article production and citations, emphasizing its commitment to sustainable development and smart city initiatives. The keywords "sustainable development", "sustainability" and “urban development” had the most occurrences in text analysis. We found three different clusters with k-means analysis, and the circular economy indicators were the most representative category. In conclusion, the study underscores the holistic vision of SSCI in the current scenario, balancing technology and sustainability to improve urban quality of life while safeguarding the planet. Encouraging further research into integrating resilience-focused indicators and innovative solutions is crucial for enhancing sustainable urban development and informing policy decisions.

Although protected areas (PAs) are designed to safeguard natural ecosystems from anthropic modifications, many PAs worldwide are subjected to numerous human-induced impacts. We evaluated whether the establishment of PAs in the Upper Paraná River floodplain region could reduce anthropic landscape changes and whether there is a difference in protection when using different PA restriction categories. We analyzed the overall landscape dynamics using 30 years of land-use time series data and evaluated the change intensity via a partial land-use intensity analysis. Despite the increasing landscape anthropization, the PAs seemed to relieve the general change process, protecting natural areas mainly from agricultural expansion. Concerning the degree of use restriction, more restricted protection led to less human-induced changes. Finally, accessing PA effectiveness is a multidisciplinary challenge for researchers; however, this knowledge is crucial to avoid misunderstandings or poorly crafted public policies or decisions that may harm the environment.

The Brazilian Atlantic Forest and Brazilian Savanna (i.e., Cerrado) are classified as World Biodiversity Hotspots. Our goal was to analyze the spatial distribution of endangered species in both habitats within the Mourão River basin, southern Brazil. Forest remnants were mapped using Landsat 8 satellite images applying NDVI medium and landscape metrics. Locations of endangered species were added as an additional layer. The result was a map of 4015 forest remnants of which 97.66% were smaller than 50 ha, and 2.34% were larger than 50 ha. A total of 41 species was recorded in the Atlantic Forest fragments of the basin (total area: 25 502.6 ha), and 32 species in the Brazilian Savanna (total area: 8.6 ha). The forest fragment with the greatest richness of endangered species was Lago Azul State Park with 29 species endangered at the state level and six at the national level. The second and third most species-rich fragments corresponded to Brazilian Savanna fragments: Cerrado Ecological Station and Lote 7H. The integration of GIS, landscape metrics and spatial distribution of endangered species is an important tool for the identification of priority areas for biodiversity conservation.

Sustainable development assessments in hydrographic sub-basins are powerful tools used to guide stakeholders. However, there remains a gap in incorporating new indicators (e.g., biodiversity indicators) into sustainability indexes, which have generally underestimated the environmental dimension. We propose an update to these indexes by incorporating biodiversity data on hydrographic sub-basins. Our goal was to introduce a new ecological sustainability index for hydrographic sub-basins (ESI-sb) that utilizes aquatic ecological indicators. We selected 16 indicators and aggregated them into four sustainability dimensions: economic, social, eco-environmental and negative environmental. We used a multi-criteria analysis based on the analysis hierarchy process (AHP) method to catch stakeholders' importance level of each indicator. The ESI-sb was calculated using the weighted average between the sub-indexes that represent the dimensions. Finally, we applied Gi* statistics to identify the ecological sustainability hotspots and coldspots regions, and the results showed in the Serra do Mar region, the southern region, and the Federal District had high ecological sustainability values; meanwhile, the hydrographic sub-basins that formed the coldspot clusters were located in the western region of the Upper Paraná River basin. The incorporation of aquatic biodiversity data into the index represents an innovation in sustainability indexes recently proposed to hydrographic sub-basins. Graphical abstract

O avanço da tecnologia permitiu que estudos em áreas pudessem ocorrer remotamente, como em planícies de inundação, pois este ambiente é de difícil acesso. A planície de inundação do Alto Rio Paraná é um ambiente diverso em vegetação possuindo mais de 360 espécies, as quais são controladas pelos pulsos de inundação e devido a sua importância ecológica estudos relacionados a influência da inundação sobre a vegetação, faz-se necessário. Com isso, o objetivo deste trabalho é estudar a influência que a inundação da planície do Alto Rio Paraná, causa sobre a vegetação para o pulso do ano de 1989/1990. Utilizando-se de imagens de satélite e índices de vegetação foi realizado a classificação do uso do solo antes e após o pulso com as classes de água, solo exposto, vegetações higrófilas, herbáceas e arbóreas. Verificou-se que, após a inundação as vegetações higrófilas, arbóreas e solo exposto diminuíram. No entanto, as áreas de vegetação herbácea e água aumentaram, e isto ocorre devido às classes que foram reduzidas preferirem ambientes com sedimentos; referindo-se às que aumentaram, foi devido à baixa capacidade de infiltração do solo. Dessa forma, conclui-se que a inundação da planície afetou na dinâmica da vegetação reduzindo ou ampliando a área de ocorrência dos tipos vegetacionais.