Transboundary climate security: climate vulnerability and rural livelihoods in the Jordan River Basin

This report presents the principal research findings of a collaborative project between LSE and Birzeit University, which investigated the climate-related vulnerabilities of agricultural communities living in areas with current or historically recent experience of military occupation – labelled ‘(post)occupation’ – within the Jordan River Basin

Globalization and water resources management : the changing value of water

The Jordan River system, which is shared by Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Jordan and Palestine, is a major issue in the current Middle East peace negotiations. Although we believe that the International Water Law is the most suitable basis to solve the disputes between Arab countries and Israel, it is worthwhile developing multi weighting approximation criteria for determining the water rights for the above riparian countries. The paper provides an overview of current resolution principles and procedures and presents the conflict resolution process in theory. The aim of this paper is to develop multi-criteria decision tool to the problem of allocating the waters of the Jordan River Basin between all riparian parties. The prime principle of the criteria is equitable and reasonable allocation factors identified by the International Law Commission in its draft articles on the non navigational uses of water. A general mathematical model was derived that found the optimal allocation outcome based on the weight of each factor. The approach presented here should be seen as a trial to deal with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict over water rights in such complex trans-boundary water resources system. It is hoped that, water negotiators review this approach

Joint management of shared aquifers

Joint management of shared aquifer

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Assessment of Heavy Metals Tolerance in Leaves, Stems and Flowers of Stevia Rebaudiana plant

Stevia has become rather widespread over a wide range of climatic locations around the world and can apparently be successfully grown under different cultivation conditions. Heavy metal accumulation of Stevia extract is dependent on obtaining heavy metals from the soil and water. Heavy metals from plant sources may also vary from place to place because soil heavy metals content varies geographically, thus, they have become the subject of many research projects. Stevia plant is easily contaminated during growth, development and processing and for this, an extensive research is needed to explore the characteristics of the heavy metal produced by the plant. The heavy metals produced from the herb and its toxicity of Stevia plant is not well documented and scientific evidence is limited to establishing Stevia plant as a medicinal plant. The samples were collected from Malacca, Malaysia. The fresh leaves, stems and flowers of the Stevia rebaudiana plant were dried using oven equipment and were grinded until fine to make powder and then of each extracted using Microwave digester. The analysis of samples was carried out by using an Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass-Spectrophotometer (ICP-MS) with different mode equipment to compare results of heavy metals in Stevia rebaudiana plant. Heavy metal accumulation in Stevia rebaudiana from leaves, stems, and flowers extraction is reported. Heavy metals in leaves, stems and flowers of Stevia rebaudiana presented variety of elements such as As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Mg, Pb, Se, Zn, Al, Ag, Co, Ca, Mn and Ni. The high tolerance to heavy metals in leaves, stems, and flowers of Stevia rebaudiana were presented at fifteen parameters below the permissible limit in plant and can be used as food product or therapeutic agent in traditional medicine

Selection of water resources management options

Selection of water resources management option