Investigating Agricultural Management Practices and Environmental Sustainability in Jordan

Jordan, as other developing countries in the world, is struggled by instable agricultural development due to existing various water pressures (e.g. increase in irrigation demands, deterioration of water quality, industrial pollution, water borne sewerage, etc.), climate change impacts, and biophysical and socioeconomic barriers (e.g. rapid population growth, social unsettlements, sudden refuges and migrations, limited economic resources, low levels of technology, environmental limitations and stresses, and widespread poverty). One of the adaptive key issues for the Jordanian environmental sustainable development is the awareness of farmers on the water savings and environmental protections at farm level. The aim of this study was to present a descriptive analysis for the adopted conventional farming practices at the Jordan Valley and explore potential of adoption of new technologies in agricultural management coupled with sustainable environmental performances, as pursued by the project “Improving the Environmental Sustainability of Irrigated Agricultural Production in Lebanon and Jordan (ENSIAP)”. Twenty farmers were selected to represent the heterogeneity of the farming practices along the three zones (districts) of Jordan Valley: Northern, Middle, and Southern Jordan Valley. A detailed survey questionnaire was developed to investigate for the potential improvements in the conventional and the newly introduced farming practices to ensure the sustainability of all natural resources. The heterogeneity of the farmers\u27 knowledge, experience, and capabilities were determined in addition to various components of cropping/ farming practices. Seven themes were emphasized in this study including (1) Farm characteristics, (2) Soil description and management, (3) Crop characteristics and management, (4) Water Irrigation parameters, (5) Cultivation and fertilizer use, (6) Environmental related issues, and (7) Farmer experience. Results indicated that most of the farmers are not fully aware with environmental sustainability issues. The irrigation systems, fertilizer use, and management practices currently in use are not resource-conservative and do not follow Best Agricultural and Management Practices, leading to high soil and groundwater degradation and pollution

Field scale soil characterization using pedostructural properties

Accurate soil characterization is crucial for understanding soil-water interactions and allow for better on-farm agricultural and environmental management. Current soil characterization methods lack quantitative attributes that integrate the soil mapping units with environmental and agronomical models. In this research we propose a methodology to physically characterize the soil water medium using quantitative parameters. We incorporated the continuously measured soil water potential curve and the soil shrinkage curve to extract the physically based pedostructural (PS) parameters needed for characterizing the soil water medium. We discuss a setup that we designed and built to continuously measure the shrinkage and potential curves. The procedure we developed to extract the PS parameters for sandy and silty soils was successfully applied on all soil samples, and the required PS parameters were extracted. We present a methodology to generate and define functional soil mapping units that possess physical and quantitative parameters. We followed a four step general system hierarchical approach overlaying study area map, landform map, and SSURGO map. The fourth step was to validate the generated functional soil units using discriminate analysis performed on the PS parameters extracted for every soil mapping unit. Measuring the shrinkage and potential curves requires a special setup that is not available in traditional soil laboratories. Pedotransfer functions (PTFs) to correlate the PS parameters to soil texture and organic matter are developed and presented. Results of this study show that surface horizon (Ap) have higher PS parameter values than subsurface horizon Bt. The PS concept showed high capabilities in defining the soil mapping units, as concluded from the discriminate analysis that was performed. The functional soil mapping units will help in modeling the soil and thus improve the decision make systems

Stroke in Airplane Passengers: A Study from a Large International Hub.

INTRODUCTION: Stroke in air travelers is being increasingly recognized. We report on stroke among passengers arriving at or transiting through a busy air travel hub. METHODS: The stroke database of the sole tertiary care center for stroke in a large busy international hub was interrogated. Demographic data of transit passengers, their stroke risk factors, stroke severity, National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS), acute stroke interventions, discharge status and outcome utilizing the Modified Raking scale (mRS) were retrieved and compared between passengers and non-passenger controls. RESULTS: Forty-three flight-related stroke patients were compared to 2564 non-passenger stroke patients. The mean age in the flight-related stroke group was 59.53±10.83 years, 30/43 (69.8%) were males. The stroke subtypes were ischemic in 30 (69.8%) patients, hemorrhagic in 9 (20.9%), and transient ischemic attack in 3 (7.0%), with one cerebral sinus venous thrombosis (2.3%). The mean NIHSS score was 7.79±6.44 in passengers, demonstrating moderate severity. Ten patients (23.3%) received thrombolysis, one (2.3%) received thrombectomy, and one (2.3%) received both thrombolysis and thrombectomy. Outcomes, 54.8% had a good outcome (mRS 0-2), and 45.2% had dependence/death (mRS 3-6). CONCLUSION: Air passengers with stroke were found to be older with more severe strokes and a higher probability of receiving acute stroke treatment compared to non-passengers. Increased awareness with appropriate and timely recognition and triaging of transit passengers with stroke is warranted