SMART - IWRM : Integrated Water Resources Management in the Lower Jordan Rift Valley; Project Report Phase I (KIT Scientific Reports ; 7597)

This book provides an overview of the large scale Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) research program SMART at the Lower Jordan River Basin which aims at local implementation, knowledge & capacity building. The focus of the first phase is placed on decentralised wastewater treatment and reuse, water quality including emerging pollutants, management and modelling of groundwater systems, artificial recharge, socio-economic frameworks, a transboundary database and decision support tools

SMART - IWRM - Sustainable Management of Available Water Resources with Innovative Technologies - Integrated Water Resources Management in the Lower Jordan Rift Valley : Final Report Phase II (KIT Scientific Reports ; 7698)

SMART was a multi-lateral research project with partners from Germany, Israel, Jordan and the Palestinian Territories. The overall goal was to develop a transferable approach for Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) in the water shortage region of the Lower Jordan Valley. The innovative aspect addressed all available water resources: groundwater and surface waters, but also wastewater, brackish water and flood water that need to be treated for use

Preliminary hydrogeological interpretation of the Aigion area from the AIG10 borehole data

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Analysis of the influence of solar activity and atmospheric factors on Be-7 air concentration by seasonal-trend decomposition

7Be air concentrations were measured at the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia campus (in the east of Spain) during the period 2007e2014. The mean values of monthly 7Be concentrations ranged from 2.65 to 8.11 mBq/m3, showing significant intra and interannual variability. A seasonal-trend decomposition methodology was applied to identify the trend-cycle, seasonal and irregular components of the 7 Be time series. The decomposition model makes it possible to estimate the influence of solar activity and atmospheric factors on the independent components, in order to find the different sources of 7Be variability. The results show that solar activity is a factor with a high inverse influence on the trend cycle pattern of 7Be variability. Solar radiation, temperature and relative humidity are positive influential factors on the seasonal 7Be variation with a regular pattern over the years. Finally, the irregular component presents a significant negative correlation with precipitation and wind speed parameters, which have an irregular behavior over the years and seasons.This study has been supported partially by the REM program of the Nuclear Safety Council SRA/2071/2015/227.06 of Spain. We are also grateful to the UPV's weather station and the AEMET service for providing the atmospheric information used in this study.Bas Cerdá, MDC.; Ortiz Moragón, J.; Ballesteros Pascual, L.; Martorell Alsina, SS. (2016). Analysis of the influence of solar activity and atmospheric factors on Be-7 air concentration by seasonal-trend decomposition. Atmospheric Environment. 145:147-157. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.atmosenv.2016.09.027S14715714

Prehistory and palaeoenvironments of the western Nefud Desert, Saudi Arabia.

Mid-latitude dune fields offer significant records of human occupations in southwest Asia, reflecting human responses to past climate changes. Currently arid, but episodically wetter in the past, the Nefud desert of northern Saudi Arabia provides numerous examples of human-environment interactions and population movements in the desert belt. Here we describe results from interdisciplinary surveys in the western Nefud that targeted palaeolake deposits identified using satellite imagery. Surveys indicate the presence of thousands of discrete palaeolakes and palaeowetlands, providing valuable palaeoenvironmental records, and numerous archaeological and palaeontological assemblages. Geomorphological investigations suggest that many further deposits remain buried. Forty-six prehistoric archaeological sites have been identified in association with freshwater deposits, spanning the Lower Palaeolithic to the pre-Islamic Holocene. Lower Palaeolithic sites appear concentrated close to raw material sources near the Nefud fringe, despite the presence of freshwater and fauna deeper in the dune field. Middle Palaeolithic occupations extend more broadly, and by the early Holocene humans were at least periodically occupying areas deep in the desert. We present the first records of Neolithic sites in this dune field, including substantial hearth complexes distributed relatively deep within the dunes, potentially indicating increased mobility during this period. Later Holocene sites with stone structures are present around the dune fringes. Our results indicate that, during wet periods of the Pleistocene and Holocene, water in the western Nefud may have been more readily available than elsewhere in northern Arabia due to the high density of depressions where wetlands can form. The high frequency of lakes or marshes appears to have facilitated human occupations and dispersal through the region