• Highlights

• The first edition of the journal's 70th volume features five articles, four on the Urban Climate Dossier and one on a rolling basis submission.
• The article by Eduarda Regina Agnolin and Pedro Murara reveals a study on the importance of native vegetation in urban areas for reducing surface temperatures.
• The article "Climate Risk Management: Interrelationship between Theory and Facts in the Brazilian Semi-Arid Region" discusses how small and medium-sized Brazilian municipalities define their strategies to address climate change.
• The authors Diogo Paz, André Martins, José Anderson França, Eduardo Lins, and Saulo Bezerra sought to develop the Environmental Sanitation Performance Index to establish a performance ranking among municipalities in Pernambuco.
• The journal also records the deaths of prominent figures in Brazilian science: Niède Guidon, Dalton Valeriano, Ariovaldo Umbelino de Oliveira, and Yosio Shimabukuro.

The Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) launched today (29) the first edition of the 70th volume of the Brazilian Journal of Geography (RBG). The edition features five articles, four of which refer to the Urban Climate Dossier and one of which is a continuous submission.

The Urban Climate Dossier is an initiative of the Biogeography and Climatology Laboratory (Bioclima), part of the Geography Department at the Federal University of Viçosa (UFV), coordinated by Professor Edson Soares Fialho. "The dossier aims at bringing together theoretical and practical work that tackles the debate on how urban climate studies can contribute to addressing the climate crisis, which increases social inequalities at different scales," explained RBG editor-in-chief Marcelo Paiva da Motta, from the IBGE Geography Coordination Office. The call for papers was launched in the second half of 2024, and the topic has received positive attention within the national academic/scientific community, with papers from various national institutions. The four articles published in the journal represent a portion of the submitted papers that will be published next, in the April 2026 issue.

The first article is entitled "Analysis of the Microclimate and Vegetation in an Enumeration Area of Erechim," by Eduarda Regina Agnolin (UFSC) and Pedro Murara (UFFS and UFSC). It is a study on the importance of native vegetation in urban areas for reducing Surface Temperature (LST). The research analyzed results from the period from January 28, 2014, to November 21, 2023, using LandSat-8 satellite imagery for the aforementioned period and applying processing techniques to measure Surface Temperature (LST).

On the theme "Climate Risk Management: Interrelationship between Theory and Facts in the Brazilian Semi-Arid Region," the second article, by Melissa Rafaela Costa Pimenta et al., discusses how small and medium-sized Brazilian municipalities define their strategies to address climate change. The focus is on the municipalities of Acari, Caicó, and Currais Novos, all in Rio Grande do Norte. The research examines the adoption of public policies and their relationship with practices and knowledge accumulated by the academic/scientific community on the subject.

The third article is entitled "Multitemporal Analysis of Surface Temperature in the Production of Urban Climate in Três Lagoas – MS: New Built-Up Areas," by Diogo Cerdan Brito, Patrícia Helena Milani, and Gislene Figueiredo Ortiz Porangaba (UFSM). By creating land use and occupation maps and analyzing LandSat-8 satellite images from July 27, 2013, August 10, 2018, and July 23, 2023, the authors created thermal maps and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) maps for the city of Três Lagoas, Mato Grosso do Sul. The analysis of the results allows identifying areas where surface temperature increases (LST) were observed, as well as identifying areas of urban expansion, establishing the relationship between the two phenomena.

Written by Andrews José de Lucena (UFRRJ), Vitor Fonseca Vieira Vasconcelos Miranda (UFRJ/University of Valencia), Liz Barreto Coelho Belém (UFRJ/University of Valencia), and Randy Rodrigo Gonçalves Santos (UFRRJ), the fourth article in the dossier is entitled "41 Years of the Landsat Thermal Satellite and Its Contribution to the Urban Surface Heat Island (USHI) in the Rio de Janeiro Metropolitan Area (RMRJ)." The authors use thermal Landsat imagery, spanning a time period spanning 1984 to 2024, to investigate the behavior of the Urban Surface Heat Island (USHI) in the Rio de Janeiro metropolitan region. The objective of the study is to identify the Urban Heat Island through Land Surface Temperature (LST) and vegetation cover through the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), according to the seasons.

The rolling-basis submission article is titled "Development of the Environmental Sanitation Performance Index (INSA) to evaluate sanitation services in the municipalities of Pernambuco, Northeast Brazil," by Diogo Paz, André Martins, José Anderson França, Eduardo Lins, and Saulo Bezerra, from the Federal Institute of Pernambuco (IFP). Based on data collected on water supply, sewage, solid waste management, and urban stormwater drainage and management services in the 184 municipalities of Pernambuco from 2010 to 2020, the researchers sought to develop the Environmental Sanitation Performance Index (INSA) to establish a performance ranking among municipalities in Pernambuco.

The Brazilian Journal of Geography will publish a call for papers for the Milton Santos Dossier in the second half of 2025. Next year the centenary of his birth is celebrated, which coincides with the 90th anniversary of the founding of the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics). The publication aims at disseminating reflections from the academic/scientific community on the geographer's contributions to national critical thought.

The journal also registers the deaths of prominent figures in Brazilian science: Niède Guidon, Dalton Valeriano, Ariovaldo Umbelino de Oliveira, and Yosio Shimabukuro, and pays tribute to Professor Maria do Carmo Galvão in the year of her birth centenary.

Niède Guidon, who died on June 4, 2025, at the age of 92, was a leading figure in Brazilian archaeology. Niède was responsible for the creation of the Serra da Capivara National Park (PI) and for a new approach to the origins of the first inhabitants of the Americas. The researcher argued that our origins are Atlantic and African, and much older than previously thought. Geophysicist Dalton Valeriano, who passed away one day after Niède at the age of 69, was a researcher at INPE (National Institute for Space Research). He was one of the architects of the Prodes (Project for Monitoring Deforestation in the Legal Amazon) and of the implementation of DETER (Real-Time Deforestation Detection), a tool for mapping deforestation and other changes in the Amazon's forest cover. Ariovaldo Umbelino de Oliveira, who died on August 2 at the age of 78, was a Senior Lecturer at the School of Philosophy, Languages and Human Sciences at the University of São Paulo (FFLCH-USP), in the Department of Human Geography. Ariovaldo was a leading figure in the field of Agrarian Geography, inspiring and guiding generations of geographers in their critical approach toward a more equitable field. On August 12 of this year, INPE researcher Yosio Shimabukuro died at the age of 75. A forestry engineer, with a master's degree in remote sensing and a PhD in forestry sciences, Shimabukuro worked for more than five decades at the institute and was directly responsible for designing and improving methodologies that form the basis of the country's monitoring system, such as Prodes and Deter.

Also in honor of the memory of the professionals who left their legacy, the RBG celebrates the centenary of the birth of Maria do Carmo Corrêa Galvão (1925-2023), the first professor at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro to study in a PhD program abroad. "Extremely didactic in the classroom, she contributed to the training of countless researchers and professors, influenced by her valuable academic career," concluded Marcelo Paiva da Motta.