This study examined the physical properties of agricultural drought (i.e., intensity, duration, and severity) in Hungary from 1961 to 2010 based on the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI). The study analyzed the interaction between drought and crop yield for maize and wheat using standardized yield residual series (SYRS), and the crop-drought resilient factor (CDRF). The results of both SPI and SPEI (-3, -6) showed that the western part of Hungary has significantly more prone to agricultural drought than the eastern part of the country. Drought frequency analysis reveals that the eastern, northern, and central parts of Hungary were the most affected regions. Drought analysis also showed that drought was particularly severe in Hungary during 1970–1973, 1990–1995, 2000–2003, and 2007. The yield of maize was more adversely affected than wheat especially in the western and southern regions of Hungary (1961–2010). In general, maize and wheat yields were severely non-resilient (CDRF < 0.8) in the central and western part of the country. The results suggest that drought events are a threat to the attainment of the second Sustainable Development Goals (SDG-2). Therefore, to ensure food security in Hungary and in other parts of the world, drought resistant crop varieties need to be developed to mitigate the adverse effects of climate change on agricultural production.

The Abu-Dabbab area, located in the central part of the Egyptian Eastern Desert, is an active seismic region where micro-earthquakes (≈ML < 2.0) are recorded regularly. Earthquake epicenters are concentrated along an ENE–WSW trending pattern. In this study, we used morphological indexes, including the valley floor width-to-valley floor height ratio (Vf), mountain front sinuosity (Smf), the asymmetry factor index (Af), the drainage basin shape index (Bs), the stream length–gradient index (SL), hypsometric integral (Hi) water drainage systems, and a digital elevation model analysis, to identify the role of tectonics. These indexes were used to define the relative tectonic activity index (RTAI), which can be utilized to distinguish low (RTAI < 1.26), moderate (RTAI = 1.26–1.73), and high (RTAI > 1.73) tectonic activity signals all over the study area. Firstly, our results indicate low to medium tectonic activity and general anomaly patterns detected along the major tectonic zones of the study area. Secondly, based on most of the low to medium tectonic activity distributed in the study area and the detected anomalies, we discuss two potential drivers of the seismicity in the Abu-Dabbab area, which are fault-controlled and deep-rooted activities.

Egypt is highly exposed to flash flood hazards, particularly in Sinai Peninsula and along the Red Sea coast, causing sudden and huge damages to constructions and huge losses in human lives during a very short time. This paper investigates the dominant characterization of morphometrical features and their relationships with the hydrological behaviors along an important strip of the western Red Sea coast. The study focuses on analyzing the October 2009 and 2019 storm events along the coastal area between EL-Qussier and Marsa Alam in order to intiate a preliminary flood risk assessment model. Morphometric features along the entire study zone provide a complete scenario of the nature of the catchments and sub-catchments development. Numerous morphometric indexes such as catchments geometry, areal indexes, linear indexes, and relief indexes were examined through processing different sets of data. Modern techniques such as remote sensing and geospatial analysis were applied to process different spatial and spectral data. The hydrological model (HEC-HMS) in the WMS software was run to delineate the catchments and sub-catchments and extract the peak flow hydrograph curves for the main catchments. The results of the water amounts and peak flow were calculated using the SCS unit hydrograph approach. The hydrological characteristics of the major catchments reveal conditions for moderate levels of flash flooding. The study ended with a number of recommendations that could minimize the negative effects of the flash flood hazards.

During the last three decades, Delhi has witnessed extensive and rapid urban expansion in all directions, especially in the East South East zone. The total built-up area has risen dramatically, from 195.3 sq. km to 435.1 sq. km, during 1989–2020, which has led to habitat fragmentation, deforestation, and difficulties in running urban utility services effectively in the new extensions. This research aimed to simulate urban expansion in Delhi based on various driving factors using a logistic regression model. The recent urban expansion of Delhi was mapped using LANDSAT images of 1989, 2000, 2010, and 2020. The urban expansion was analyzed using concentric rings to show the urban expansion intensity in each direction. Nine driving factors were analyzed to detect the influence of each factor on the urban expansion process. The results revealed that the proximity to urban areas, proximity to main roads, and proximity to medical facilities were the most significant factors in Delhi during 1989–2020, where they had the highest regression coefficients: −0.884, −0.475, and −0.377, respectively. In addition, the predicted pattern of urban expansion was chaotic, scattered, and dense on the peripheries. This pattern of urban expansion might lead to further losses of natural resources. The relative operating characteristic method was utilized to assess the accuracy of the simulation, and the resulting value of 0.96 proved the validity of the simulation. The results of this research will aid local authorities in recognizing the patterns of future expansion, thus facilitating the implementation of effective policies to achieve sustainable urban development in Delhi.

Flash floods are one of the most common and destructive natural hazards, and recent flood events show their severe impact on Saudi Arabia. Flash floods are increasing year by year in duration and intensity, resulting in huge destructive impacts for the nation concerned. Anticipating the spatial patterns and occurrence of rainfall-induced floods is in high demand. Recent technique-based studies and their comprehensive results aid in understanding the flood potential of the drainage basins and in minimizing the risks of a threat to humans and of economic damage. Jeddah City is located at the western coast of the Red Sea in Saudi Arabia and is one of the most important coastal cities in the Arabian Kingdom. It has experienced several destructive flash flood events, particularly in 2009 and 2011, causing serious damage and significant loss of life. An analysis of the morphometric parameters using geospatial techniques provides significant insights into the hydrological response of the drainage basins to major heavy rainfall events. In this paper, two relative flood susceptibility scenarios were produced: drainage basin levels and very accurate pixel-level conditions. The morphometric comparison levels suggest that basins 1 and 7 are very high, whereas the other basins have moderate and low levels. The derived flood susceptibility map was integrated with the topographic position and wetness algorithms (TPI and TWI) through overlay processing. The integration analysis aids in realizing the relationship between the general basin morphometric characteristics and the in situ relief for producing the flood susceptibility spots over the entire basins. Thus, the method of this paper can be applied to evaluate the site-specific plan minimizing the effects of flash flood risks in similar areas.

In the last few decades, agricultural drought (Ag.D) has seriously affected crop production and food security worldwide. In Hungary, little research has been carried out to assess the impacts of climate change, particularly regarding droughts and crop production, and especially on regional scales. Thus, the main aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of agricultural drought on sunflower production across Hungary. Drought data for the Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) and the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI) were collected from the CARBATCLIM database (1961–2010), whereas sunflower production was collected from the Hungarian national statistical center (KSH) on regional and national scales. To address the impact of Ag.D on sunflower production, the sequence of standardized yield residuals (SSYR) and yield losses YlossAD was applied. Additionally, sunflower resilience to Ag.D (SRAg.D) was assessed on a regional scale. The results showed that Ag.D is more severe in the western regions of Hungary, with a significantly positive trend. Interestingly, drought events were more frequent between 1990 and 2010. Moreover, the lowest SSYR values were reported as −3.20 in the Hajdu-Bihar region (2010). In this sense, during the sunflower growing cycle, the relationship between SSYR and Ag.D revealed that the highest correlations were recorded in the central and western regions of Hungary. However, 75% of the regions showed that the plantation of sunflower is not resilient to drought where SRAg.Dx < 1. To cope with climate change in Hungary, an urgent mitigation plan should be implemented.

Evaluating and predicting the occurrence and spatial remarks of climate and rainfall-related destructive hazards is a big challenge. Periodically, Sinai Peninsula is suffering from natural risks that enthuse researchers to provide the area more attention and scientific investigation. Extracted information from the morpho-metric indices aids in understanding the flood potentiality over various sizes of drainage catchments. In this work, the morpho-metric analysis has been used in order to model the relative signals of flood vulnerability of 16 catchments in northern Sinai. The geospatial technique has been applied to process the digital elevation models (DEMs) in order to produce different analysis maps. Basic geometries, in addition to several morpho-metric indices, were extracted and analyzed by investigating the digital elevation models. Three different effective methods were applied separately to build up three models of flood susceptibility behaviors. Finally, two flood susceptibility signals were defined: the integration method and accurate pixel level conditions models. The integrated method analysis indicates that the western half of the study landscape, including catchments (12, 13, and 14), presents high levels of flood susceptibility in addition to catchment 9 in the eastern half, whereas the other catchments were found to provide moderate levels. The integrated flood susceptibility final map overlaid one of the most effective topographic indices (topographic position index, TPI). The integrated results aided in understanding the link of the general catchments morphometry to the in situ topography for mapping the different flood susceptibility locations over the entire study landscape. Therefore, this can be used for investigating the surface-specific reduction strategy against the impacts of flood hazards in the proposed landscape.

Gross primary production (GPP) is a key component in assessing the global change in carbon uptake and in evaluating the impacts of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems. A decrease in the photosynthetic rate due to stomata closing by vegetation could have an impact on GPP. Nonetheless, the uncertainty in long-term GPP patterns and their resilience to drought disturbances has not yet been examined thoroughly. In this study, four state-of-the-art GPP datasets, including the revised EC-LUE algorithm-driven GPP (GLASS-GPP), the EC flux tower upscaling-based GPP (FluxCom-GPP), the MODIS algorithm-driven GPP model (GIMMS-GPP), and the vegetation photosynthesis model-GPP (VPM-GPP), were used to assess GPP characteristics in the Middle East region for 36 years spanning the period of 1982 to 2016. All investigated datasets revealed an increasing trend over the study period, albeit with a more pronounced upward trend for the VPM-GPP dataset in the most recent decades (2000–2016). On the other hand, FluxCom-GPP exhibited less variability than the other datasets. In addition, while GLASS-GPP presented a significant increasing trend in some parts of the region, significant negative trends dominated the other parts. This study defined six significant drought episodes that occurred in the Middle East region between 1982 and 2017. The most severe drought events were recorded in 1985, 1989–1990, 1994, 1999–2001, 2008, and 2015, spreading over more than 15% of the total area of the region. The extreme droughts accounted for a high decline in GPP in the north of Iraq, the northeast of Syria, and the southwest of Iran, where 20.2 and 40.8% of the ecosystem’s GPP were severely non-resilient to drought according to the GLASS and VPM-based GPP responses, respectively. The spatial distribution patterns of the correlations between the SEDI and GPP products were somewhat similar and coherent. The highest positive correlations were detected in the central and western parts of Turkey, the western and northeastern parts of Iran, and north Iraq, which showed anomalous r values (r = 0.7), especially for the SEDI-VPM and SEDI-FluxCom GPP associations. The findings of this study can provide a solid base for identifying at-risk regions in the Middle East in terms of climate change impacts, which will allow for better management of ecosystems and proper implementation of climate policies.