Rainfall distribution and trends of the daily precipitation concentration index in northern Morocco: a need for an adaptive environmental policy

A national priority at the Moroccan level is to understand the spatiotemporal rainfall irregularity to anticipate suitable strategies for water and agriculture management. The most northern mountainous region shows intense sensitivity to extreme hydroclimatic hazards which may compromise the future of socioeconomic acceleration and further weaken environmental balances. However, planning and decision making require accurate data, on a detailed scale and with good spatial distribution which is not the case in several south-Mediterranean countries where rainfall data and/or well- established hydro-meteorological network is lacking. In this paper, abundant rain gauge measurements combined with time-series open data (1958-2015) were used to study the rainfall variability. Results show an annual rainfall increase trend since 1996 with frequent, intense and abundant rains causing violent torrents and floods. This humid trend alter- nates with short but severe dry periods. Spatial distribution shows a rainfall increase from eastern to western area and from the coastal plains to high mountains. Based on a continuous daily rainfall dataset (from 1988 to 2012) from six scat- tered stations, it appears that the pattern of heavy and extreme wet days takes the form of an irregular interannual cycle. Trends of the annual precipitation daily concentration indicate a significant positive trend in the center than in the East of the study area. Considering these observations, a review of water needs/obligations priorities seems crucial so that a new conscious and adaptative environmental policy would approve new procedures for a sustainable management

Impacts and social implications of landuse-environment conflicts in a typical Mediterranean watershed

In coastal watersheds, services and landuse favour coastal tourism and urbanization, depriving rural upstream of infrastructure and attention. This unbalanced management leads to an intensification of socioeconomic changes that generate a structural heterogeneity of the landscape and a reduction in the livelihoods of the rural population. The incessant dissociation between the objectives of the stakeholders triggers landuse-environment-economy conflicts which threaten to mutate large-scale development programs. Here, we used multi-assessment techniques in a Mediterranean watershed from Morocco to evaluate the effects of landuse change on water, vegetation, and perception of the rural population towards environmental issues. We combined complementary vegetation indexes (NDVI and EVI) to study long-term landuse change and phenological statistical pixel-based trends. We assessed the exposure of rural households to the risk of groundwater pollution through a water analysis supplemented by the calculation of an Integrated Water Quality Index. Later, we contrasted the findings with the results of a social survey with a representative sample of 401 households from 7 villages. We found that rapid coastal linear urbanization has resulted in a 12-fold increase in construction over the past 35 years, to the detriment of natural spaces and the lack of equipment and means in rural areas upstream. We show that the worst water qualities are linked to the negative impact of anthropogenic activities on immediately accessible water points. We observe that rural households are aware of the existence and gravity of environmental issues but act confusedly because of their low education level which generates a weak capacity to understand cause and effect relationships. We anticipate the pressing need to improve the well-being and education of the population and synergistically correct management plans to target the watershed as a consolidated system. Broadly, stakeholders should restore lost territorial harmony and reallocate landuse according to a sustainable environment-socioeconomic vision

Hydrogeochemical and statistical approach to characterize groundwater salinity in the Ghiss-Nekkor coastal aquifers in the Al Hoceima province, Morocco

Seawater intrusion is one of the most severe problems confronting coastal aquifers. These aquifers are often considered significant freshwater sources, particularly in arid regions. The water resources mobilized at the Al Hoceima (Northeastern Morocco) come from the Ghiss-Nekkor aquifer and the Abdelkarim El Khattabi dam. The degradation of groundwater quality of the aquifer and the probability of marine intrusion has become a severe concern for the communities. The current study provides multidisciplinary research using hydrogeochemical and statistical approaches to evaluate groundwater quality and determine the origin of salinity in this aquifer. Depending on the direction of the water flow, he results indicate that most wells have a total salinity exceeding 2 g/L. The dominant chemical facies encountered are Na-Cl-Na-SO4 resulting from rock-water interaction

BioPS: System for screening and assessment of biofuel-production potential of cyanobacteria

Cyanobacteria are one of the target groups of organisms explored for production of free fatty acids (FFAs) as biofuel precursors. Experimental evaluation of cyanobacterial potential for FFA production is costly and time consuming. Thus, computational approaches for comparing and ranking cyanobacterial strains for their potential to produce biofuel based on the characteristics of their predicted proteomes can be of great importance. Results To enable such comparison and ranking, and to assist biotechnology developers and researchers in selecting strains more likely to be successfully engineered for the FFA production, we developed the Biofuel Producer Screen (BioPS) platform (http://www.cbrc. kaust.edu.sa/biops). BioPS relies on the estimation of the predicted proteome makeup of cyanobacterial strains to produce and secrete FFAs, based on the analysis of well-studied cyanobacterial strains with known FFA production profiles. The system links results back to various external repositories such as KEGG, UniProt and GOLD, making it easier for users to explore additional related information. Conclusion To our knowledge, BioPS is the first tool that screens and evaluates cyanobacterial strains for their potential to produce and secrete FFAs based on strain\u27s predicted proteome characteristics, and rank strains based on that assessment. We believe that the availability of such a platform (comprising both a prediction tool and a repository of pre-evaluated stains) would be of interest to biofuel researchers. The BioPS system will be updated annually with information obtained from newly sequenced cyanobacterial genomes as they become available, as well as with new genes that impact FFA production or secretion

Estudio comparativo de diferentes técnicas geofísicas para el control de la intrusión salina en acuíferos costeros: Aplicación al acuífero de Oued Laou (Marruecos)

Groundwater is a fundamental and strategic resource for water supply of coastal areas, especially in the Mediterranean basin where the irregularity of precipitation, both seasonally and year-onyear, put at risk the availability of surface water in the rivers, which go from being dry for long periods to causing torrential discharges. In particular, if the exploitation of coastal aquifers is not properly managed and the quality of groundwater is not monitored regularly, important sectors of the aquifer may be affected by saltwater intrusion, and cause the abandonment of the wells. Geophysical methods are a very effective complement to provide indirect information on groundwater salinity in areas of the aquifer where wells or piezometers are not available for sampling. This study presents the results obtained from the application of different geophysical methods in the coastal aquifer of Oued Laou (Morocco) as a complement to hydrochemical data. Four geophysical methods, two electrical: vertical electrical sounding and electrical resistivity tomography, and two electromagnetic: frequency domain EM and time domain EM sounding. The comparative analysis of the results obtained by each method has made it possible to assess the coherence and complementarity of each method, as well as their corresponding advantages and limitations in terms of resolution and cost-effectiveness

Literature-Based Enrichment Insights into Redox Control of Vascular Biology

In cellular physiology and signaling, reactive oxygen species (ROS) play one of the most critical roles. ROS overproduction leads to cellular oxidative stress. This may lead to an irrecoverable imbalance of redox (oxidation-reduction reaction) function that deregulates redox homeostasis, which itself could lead to several diseases including neurodegenerative disease, cardiovascular disease, and cancers. In this study, we focus on the redox effects related to vascular systems in mammals. To support research in this domain, we developed an online knowledge base, DES-RedoxVasc, which enables exploration of information contained in the biomedical scientific literature. The DES-RedoxVasc system analyzed 233399 documents consisting of PubMed abstracts and PubMed Central full-text articles related to different aspects of redox biology in vascular systems. It allows researchers to explore enriched concepts from 28 curated thematic dictionaries, as well as literature-derived potential associations of pairs of such enriched concepts, where associations themselves are statistically enriched. For example, the system allows exploration of associations of pathways, diseases, mutations, genes/proteins, miRNAs, long ncRNAs, toxins, drugs, biological processes, molecular functions, etc. that allow for insights about different aspects of redox effects and control of processes related to the vascular system. Moreover, we deliver case studies about some existing or possibly novel knowledge regarding redox of vascular biology demonstrating the usefulness of DES-RedoxVasc. DES-RedoxVasc is the first compiled knowledge base using text mining for the exploration of this topic

DES-mutation : system for exploring links of mutations and diseases

During cellular division DNA replicates and this process is the basis for passing genetic information to the next generation. However, the DNA copy process sometimes produces a copy that is not perfect, that is, one with mutations. The collection of all such mutations in the DNA copy of an organism makes it unique and determines the organism's phenotype. However, mutations are often the cause of diseases. Thus, it is useful to have the capability to explore links between mutations and disease. We approached this problem by analyzing a vast amount of published information linking mutations to disease states. Based on such information, we developed the DES-Mutation knowledgebase which allows for exploration of not only mutation-disease links, but also links between mutations and concepts from 27 topic-specific dictionaries such as human genes/proteins, toxins, pathogens, etc. This allows for a more detailed insight into mutation-disease links and context. On a sample of 600 mutation-disease associations predicted and curated, our system achieves precision of 72.83%. To demonstrate the utility of DES-Mutation, we provide case studies related to known or potentially novel information involving disease mutations. To our knowledge, this is the first mutation-disease knowledgebase dedicated to the exploration of this topic through text-mining and data-mining of different mutation types and their associations with terms from multiple thematic dictionaries

DES-ncRNA: A knowledgebase for exploring information about human micro and long noncoding RNAs based on literature-mining

Noncoding RNAs (ncRNAs), particularly microRNAs (miRNAs) and long ncRNAs (lncRNAs), are important players in diseases and emerge as novel drug targets. Thus, unraveling the relationships between ncRNAs and other biomedical entities in cells are critical for better understanding ncRNA roles that may eventually help develop their use in medicine. To support ncRNA research and facilitate retrieval of relevant information regarding miRNAs and lncRNAs from the plethora of published ncRNA-related research, we developed DES-ncRNA (www.cbrc.kaust.edu.sa/des_ncrna). DES-ncRNA is a knowledgebase containing text- and data-mined information from public scientific literature and other public resources. Exploration of mined information is enabled through terms and pairs of terms from 19 topic-specific dictionaries including, for example, antibiotics, toxins, drugs, enzymes, mutations, pathways, human genes and proteins, drug indications and side effects, mutations, diseases, etc. DES-ncRNA contains approximately 878,000 associations of terms from these dictionaries of which 36,222 (5,373) are with regards to miRNAs (lncRNAs). We provide several ways to explore information regarding ncRNAs to users including controlled generation of association networks as well as hypotheses generation. We show an example how DES-ncRNA can aid research on Alzheimer disease and suggest potential therapeutic role for Fasudil. DES-ncRNA is a powerful tool that can be used on its own or as a complement to the existing resources, to support research in human ncRNA. To our knowledge, this is the only knowledgebase dedicated to human miRNAs and lncRNAs derived primarily through literature-mining enabling exploration of a broad spectrum of associated biomedical entities, not paralleled by any other resource