On February 6, 2023, T & uuml;rkiye experienced two major earthquakes centered in Kahramanmara & scedil; and felt in 11 provinces. As a result, more than 50,000 people were killed and more than 100,000 buildings collapsed or were heavily damaged. This great destruction shows again the importance of cities being resilient against disasters. This study examines earthquake damage to buildings in terms of settlement suitability and building characteristics in densely built areas of Antakya and Defne, the central districts of Hatay province where the building damage rate was the highest. The study has identified two main questions regarding whether the suitability of the ground for settlement can be differentiated in terms of earthquake damage and whether building characteristics affect earthquake damage in terms of the different suitability categories. Suitability is analyzed under three categories: critically suitable, moderately suitable, and suitable. Building characteristics involve building height, ground coverage area, number of basement floors, and total construction area. The study uses geographic information systems to determine settlement suitability and superimpose this over damage. Additionally, multinomial logistic regression is used to analyze the effect of building characteristics on earthquake damage, with the results showing earthquake damage to be higher in critically and moderately suitable areas. In terms of building characteristics, building height has the greatest effect on earthquake damage, while the presence of a basement floor reduces earthquake damage, especially in critically suitable areas. An increase in the ratio of building height to ground coverage area was also found to be a factor that increases earthquake damage.

Trees growing in urban environments are often impacted by maintenance or construction work involving the cutting of roots. Tree protection zones have been proposed to avoid critical damage to the tree. However, despite incorporating quantitative information, they heavily rely on expert judgement that remains to be validated. In a study conducted across six parks in Quebec City, Canada, two commonly found tree species, Acer platanoides L. and Tilia cordata Mill., presumed to be different in terms of vulnerability to root damage, were subjected to a range of trenching treatments. The trees were between 23 and 40 cm diameter at breast height (DBH). A safety factor was calculated relating the turning moment the tree can withstand to the turning moment imposed by high winds likely to occur. The safety factor against uprooting was assessed for each tree before and after root trenching using a non-destructive pulling approach. The effects of tree species, distance to the trench, and their combined interaction were tested on tree stability. The relationship between tree stability and soil texture, tree characteristics, and the number of damaged roots were also tested. Safety factors were initially variable, ranging from 0.5 to 4.5. T. cordata safety factors were lower than those of A. platanoides and influenced by soil texture. Trenching treatments had no effect on the safety factor, even when two perpendicular trenches were dug at 1 m from the stem. No index of the amount of root damaged was significantly related to the safety factor. Root trenching treatments that encroached closer to the tree trunk than the recommended tree protection zones did not affect the stability of both species. Nevertheless, it is essential to recognize that other ecophysiological processes might still be influenced, and long-term monitoring is crucial. Both should be taken into account when determining these zones.

Tree failure can pose significant challenges to green-infrastructure planning for potentially jeopardizing ecosystem services provision, infrastructure safety, and citizens' well-being. The city-wide disturbance caused by the loss of over 2000 trees annually in Sa similar to o Paulo, Brazil, impelled local authorities to collect detailed field-data on tree failure from 2016 to 2018 at the city center, a hotspot of tree failure, and then engage with the academia to support risk management. We aimed at building predictors and defining guidelines to reduce branch, trunk, and root failure based on species, wood status, root collar constrictions, conflicts with overhead cables, pruning methods, and site characteristics of 456 trees using Classification Trees and Bagging. These algorithms commonly used in decision-making yielded up to 70% accuracy, identifying wood status, root collar constrictions, and pruning as the main predictors. Branch failure represents 46% of the dataset. In the absence of wood degrada-tion, branches were the most likely mode of failure. Root failure comes next representing 33% of the dataset, common to trees without wood degradation but with constricted root collars by pavement, compacted soil, or girdling roots. Root failure also dominates in trees with clear signs of wood decay and trunk cavities. Trunk failure only represents 21% of the events, common to trees with wood decay and subject to poor pruning practices. Thus, effective management of trees requires a collaborative approach to collecting data, analyzing, and establishing roles and guidelines. This study points to the role of local authorities in undertaking a detailed assessment of trees' wood status throughout the city, while the municipality and private companies responsible for their management must adopt appropriate pruning practices. Lastly, those engaged in planting trees must guarantee enough space for the root collar to grow. Neglecting these guidelines can incur the cost of twice as much damage to the city.

Environmental damages are inherent to urbanization processes and therefore need to be carefully measured and mitigated, especially those that affect hydrological regimes, because they reverberate beyond the urbanized area and reach the entire watershed. Although essential for mitigating environmental damages affecting suburban subdivisions, drainage systems and rainwater management are usually given secondary status during urban land planning. The present study evaluated the implications of the absence of adequate subdivision planning, focusing on the process of occupation and regularization of the Gated Community Alto da Boa Vista - in the Sobradinho Administrative District (in Brazil's Federal District). Our sources were land regularization documents, data on rainfall, soil typology and remote sensing imagery. The images allowed us to detect changes in soil cover over several years and to identify resulting changes in infiltration and runoff. Data analysis showed that faulty attention was given to environmental and urban aspects during the planning phase and the installation of the gated community and contributed to the occurrence of erosion processes. It was found that it is necessary to improve public management routines to expedite the granting of urban and environmental licenses, in addition to defining technically adequate and integrated requirements for the installation of drainage systems and the management of rainwater runoff in areas affected by urban expansion.