The waters of Kuwait Bay, northern Arabian Gulf, are well mixed by macrotidal, semi-diurnal tides. Sea surface temperature (SST) is thus a good proxy of water mass temperature in the bay. The factors governing SST have been conveniently subdivided into global, regional and local drivers. This paper provides a study on long-term drivers of temperature change in the northern Arabian Gulf: that is, factors that influence decadal changes. AVHRR (NOAA) satellite data of Kuwait Bay, collected between 1985 and 2002, show that SST has steadily increased at a rate of 0.6 (±0.3)°C/decade. This trend was three times greater than the concurrent global average. The rate of change was greatest in May and June and least during winter months. The trends defined by satellite data were substantiated by routine in situ monthly measurements of SST made in the region and were also similar to air temperature trends recorded at Kuwait airport. The monthly measurements of SST also showed a peak in summer temperature coincident with an El Niño event in 1998. A relatively low summertime peak during 1991 in the aftermath of Iraqi invasion of Kuwait is considered to be the result of atmospheric dimming brought about by dense smoke that persisted in the region for most of that year.
The Red Sea coastal zone is characterized by its sensitive, fragile, unique natural resources and habitats. In the Hurghada coastal region, major changes in the tourism industry have taken place in the last few decades. The detection of environmental changes, in a selected site of the Red Sea coastal zone, will be helpful to protect and develop this coastal environment.A methodology for separating natural and man-made changes in satellite images was developed. It was based on the following assumptions: (1) slow changes, which occur within the range of the class re ectance, represent a natural change rather than an anthropogenic one; (2) natural changes tend to be in the same land-use/land-cover class in each date, i.e. slow changes in the re ectance, not leading to changes in the type of land-use/land-cover class from the master image to the destination one; and (3) rapid changes in the re ectance of the Earth's objects are usually related to anthropogenic activities. This technique is used to identify and assess changes along the coast of Hurghada and Ras Abu Soma, the Red Sea.Results indicate serious human impacts and the necessity for control measures and monitoring. Recommendations are presented.
Geographical Information System (GIS) can be considered the core of the Interactive Facilities Management Environment (iFaME) framework in managing different facilities on the building bases. This study aims at building a comprehensive geodatabase for different elements of infrastructure facilities and services on the building bases for a selected number of schools and developing a GIS-based iFaME interactive application to manage different facilities at the school level in Kuwait. The iFaME is a two-dimensional/three-dimensional (2D/3D) desktop application. It is intended to take planners, decision makers, and maintenance experts inside the building to provide an interactive GIS platform to manage, visualize, query, maintain, and update the database related to school assets and facilities. The Autodesk Revit software was used to produce 3D building information models (BIM) for the selected schools. It provides accurate geometrical representation of the school building elements in an integrated data environment. The iFaME application is integrated with the Revit BIM models and the STAR-APIC Elyx 3D software solution. With the development of the iFaME applications, the facility managers in the MoE could establish greater control over the space allocation and management, asset management, emergency planning, and other areas of facility management. The school managers and maintenance engineers are considered among the most beneficiaries from this application. The school managers will monitor the maintenance activities all the time, while the maintenance engineers will use the application as a container for maintenance orders, and on the same time to document what they accomplished on daily basis. The iFaME application will reduce the maintenance cost of school assets and facilities in addition to increase their efficiency.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.