Drone technology (an unmanned, remotely controlled aerial vehicle) is now essential to help collect images, collaborate in interpretation, analysis and diagnosis, for example, of erosion processes and road construction. It is capable of creating real-time maps of how diseases spread and assessing the likelihood of new volcanic eruptions. Its applications range from engineering to agriculture.
This is just one of the many technologies that are being addressed in two events taking place simultaneously at Unicamp: the XVII Brazilian Symposium on Applied Physical Geography and the I National Congress of Physical Geography, organized by the Department of Geography (DGEO) and the Institute of Geosciences ( IG). Both started last Wednesday (28) with short courses and field work. On Thursday night (29), there was the opening ceremony at the Unicamp Convention Center. see the programming complete, which continues until July 2nd.
According to IG professor Archimedes Perez Filho, general coordinator of the event, the idea was to bring new methods and techniques used in different areas of physical geography, including climatology, geomorphology, biogeography, geodiversity, geoarchaeology, historical heritage. Geography experienced a resurgence in the 1980s and 1990s with environmental issues. “There are a variety of aspects being discussed and this certainly attracted a large number of people interested in the event. There are around 1.400 participants distributed across two rooms,” he said. The themes, he said, are extremely relevant for the entire national territory, both in natural physical aspects and in social aspects.
Archimedes is involved in a project that uses new methodologies to recognize the dating of deposition materials in rivers that make up the current landscape. The initiative is part of an agreement with the University of Coimbra, now in its fifth year with support from Fapesp. “I was there in February, where I spent a month, driving 2.500 km in Portugal, covering practically the entire Portuguese territory”, he reported. “We analyzed the different levels of river terraces."
The objective of the project is to understand the evolution and climatic pulsations from ten thousand years to the present moment. According to Archimedes, the terrace is a formation at the bottom of the valley that results from the lowering of sea levels. The river causes some incisions that, at certain times, can lead to a hotter and more humid climate. “In Brazil, we are proving that the history of the evolution of relief has a new conception: that it is extremely recent. We are uncovering, through methodological techniques and procedures (such as Optically Stimulated Luminescence), when a quartz crystal was last exposed to sunlight, before being covered by more recent sediments.”
According to the professor, this project is reaching its final phase and will be able to reveal how this evolution takes place. “We have already concluded that the current landscape is too fragile, especially in the tropical world. We have to be very careful, therefore, with its use, with its occupation”, he warned. He also emphasized that the results found are extremely significant for public policies, because all of this concerns the issue of urban or rural planning. "If there is no planning and prior knowledge, if we occupy this landscape and are not careful, we may have to face serious problems. It will be the beginning of the end: with catastrophic consequences", he stated.
