Climate change and water resources in the Middle East: Vulnerability, socio-economic impacts, and adaption

While the extent of human induced global warming is inconclusive, the vulnerability of natural systems to rapid changes in climate patterns is regarded as one of the most challenging issues in recent years. Water resources are a main component of natural systems that might be affected by climate change. This paper characterises water resources in several Middle Eastern countries and evaluates regional climate predictions for various scenarios using General Circulation Models. Adaptation measures are assessed with a focus on no-regret actions in the context of local socio-economic and environmental frameworks

Developing Landsat Based Algorithms To Augment In Situ Monitoring Of Freshwater Lakes And Reservoirs

Many lakes and reservoirs lack adequate water quality monitoring programs. With little information on the state of these systems, managing these resources and their contributing watersheds is a challenge. The use of remote sensing presents an opportunity to better characterize these freshwater systems. The full potential of using the Landsat program to measure optically active water quality parameters, such as chlorophyll-a, suspended sediments and water clarity was explored using the Qaraoun Reservoir in Lebanon as a case study. An in situ monitoring program was developed and synchronized with the overpass of Landsat 7 and the newly launched Landsat 8 satellites in an effort to develop, calibrate, and validate empirical relationships that link water quality parameters with sensor radiances. Collected monitoring data revealed that the reservoir was hypereutrophic, with median summer chlorophyll-a concentrations exceeding 70 ug/L. The generated models showed promise in capturing the state of the reservoir, with some differences between the models developed for Landsat 7 and 8. These differences are expected to have implications on the transferability of the developed algorithms and on blending data from both satellites. Yet, the results highlight the importance of using the Landsat program as part of future monitoring activities as well as for hindcasting surface water quality, both a key step towards tracking changes in the system over time

Developing A Hydrologic Information System: Towards Promoting Sustainable Standardization

Water quantity and quality monitoring plays a key role towards the development of a sustainable water sector. The required infrastructure needed to monitor and manage surface and groundwater systems are often lacking particularly in developing countries. When available, water quantity and quality data are invariably fragmented, intermittent, not shared, with deficient metadata, and stored in formats that hinder establishing seamless coupling with hydrological models. Most data are saved locally with little attention placed on defining and maintaining metadata on the collection protocols, geographic referencing, measurement accuracy, resolution, detection limits, and data censorship. These limitations present serious challenges in reaching sound water management strategies. To alleviate these shortcomings, a Hydrologic Information System (HIS) based on the ArcHydro data model was developed using the country of Lebanon as a prototype. The HIS centralized available hydrological and water resources information; coupled spatial coverage with respective time series data on flow, water demand, meteorology, and water quality; and standardized metadata. Additionally, the system was structured to support hydrologic modeling and water resources analysis. A loose coupling was also integrated between the system and the Water Evaluation And Planning (WEAP) hydrological model and tested on the Upper Litani River Basin. The framework encompassed the ability to export back model simulation results and incorporate them within the HIS as time series records. The developed HIS system has since been adopted as a data repository for other water related projects in Lebanon and has helped identify key gaps in existing data and set monitoring priorities

Participatory Improvement of Water and Sanitation Services in Tripoli through a Comparative Analysis with Irbid : final technical report

This report covers the American University of Beirut (AUB) participatory study to improve water and sanitation services in the Tebbaneh region, one of the poorest urban areas in Tripoli (Lebanon). Based on community surveys and comparative analyses, pilot interventions were defined and implemented, including replacing corroded water tanks in 19 buildings with new plastic water tanks on roof tops, and the replacement of water pipes in 4 buildings. A framework for sustainable urban development was established to guide current and future urban environmental planning specifically in the Tebbaneh areas, with potential scaling up and/or extension to other similar urban areas

Aerobic vs. anaerobic biological processes for the treatment of organically contaminated groundwater

This paper describes laboratory scale results of aerobic and anaerobic biological treatment studies conducted to evaluate the feasibility of treating ground water contaminated with an organic solvent consisting of an equal weight-mixture of methylethylketone and cyclohexanone. For this purpose, three alternatives were considered, namely a single-stage anaerobic baffled reactor, an activated sludge system, and an aerated lagoon. The study focused on determining and comparing the treatment efficiency of each of the three treatment processes under similar operating conditions. Aerobic processes proved to be more effective in treating the organically contaminated groundwater

Environmental impact assessment of traffic improvement in highly congested urban areas: the Beirut Urban Transport Project

After nearly two decades of civil unrest, Lebanon launched a reconstruction and development initiative. Environmental impact assessments (EIAs) were introduced primarily to secure international financing and assistance. This report discusses an EIA for the proposed Beirut Urban Transport Project. The Lebanese Government is seeking to finance the project through a loan from the World Bank. Since traffic congestion has reached unsustainable levels in recent years, the main objective of the project is to improve traffic management within the City and its surrounding areas. Environmental management and monitoring are emphasized within the context of the EIA proces