Omar S. Aburizaiza

Revitalizing a traditional dryland water supply system: the karezes in Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Karezes (qanats), historically vital sources of water for multiple uses in the driest parts of the world, have been deteriorating over the past five decades. This paper provides a review of the global literature on the status and potential of karezes, and offers country case studies for Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. It offers syntheses of key issues, lessons, options and proposed interventions for re-vitalizing the karez systems. The paper identifies criteria for prioritizing karez systems for rehabilitation and outlines key conditions for their effective functioning and sustainability. The paper suggests that the benefits of restoring karez systems to local communities are large and some systems, such as the Ain Zubaida in the Makkah Al-Mukaramah Region, are of global importance.

Obesity and public health in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Abstract Overweight and obesity are now a global epidemic, with more than one in five people qualifying as obese worldwide. These conditions are accompanied by excessive rates of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) related to overweight, like type 2 diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and cardiovascular diseases. Saudi Arabia, which has become increasingly westernized over the past few decades now has one of the highest prevalence rates of overweight and obesity, even in children. This puts the population at great risk for increased rates of NCD mortality. Competing cultures is partly to blame, as the combination of persisting traditional Saudi cultural practices, modern cultural changes, and economic prosperity has created an obesogenic environment that promotes unhealthy eating, sedentary lifestyles, and weight gain. Overweight and obesity are more prevalent in Saudi women than in Saudi men. Interventions targeting the environment are needed in order to promote greater health through healthy eating decisions and increased physical activity or exercise (especially for women).

Air Quality in Mecca and Surrounding Holy Places in Saudi Arabia During Hajj: Initial Survey

The Arabian Peninsula experiences severe air pollution, the extent and sources of which are poorly documented. Each year in Saudi Arabia this situation is intensified during Hajj, the Holy Pilgrimage of Islam that draws millions of pilgrims to Mecca. An initial study of air quality in Mecca and surrounding holy sites during the 2012 Hajj (October 24-27) revealed strongly elevated levels of the combustion tracer carbon monoxide (CO, up to 57 ppmv) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) along the pilgrimage route-especially in the tunnels of Mecca-that are a concern for human health. The most abundant VOC was the gasoline evaporation tracer i-pentane, which exceeded 1200 ppbv in the tunnels. Even though VOC concentrations were generally lower during a follow-up non-Hajj sampling period (April 2013), many were still comparable to other large cities suffering from poor air quality. Major VOC sources during the 2012 Hajj study included vehicular exhaust, gasoline evaporation, liquefied petroleum gas, and air conditioners. Of the measured compounds, reactive alkenes and CO showed the strongest potential to form ground-level ozone. Because the number of pilgrims is expected to increase in the future, we present emission reduction strategies to target both combustive and evaporative fossil fuel sources.

Characterization of carbon monoxide, methane and nonmethane hydrocarbons in emerging cities of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and in Singapore

We investigate the composition of 63 C2-C10 nonmethane hydrocarbons (NMHCs), methane (CH4) and carbon monoxide (CO), in Jeddah, Mecca, and Madina (Saudi Arabia), in Lahore, (Pakistan), and in Singapore. We established a database with which to compare and contrast NMHCs in regions where ambient levels and emissions are poorly characterized, but where conditions are favorable to the formation of tropospheric ozone, and where measurements are essential for improving emission inventories and modeling. This dataset will also serve as a base for further analysis of air pollution in Western Saudi Arabia including, but not limited to, the estimation of urban emissions and long range pollution transport from these regions. The measured species showed enhanced levels in all Saudi Arabian cities compared to the local background but were generally much lower than in Lahore. In Madina, vehicle exhaust was the dominant NMHC source, as indicated by enhanced levels of combustion products and by the good correlation between NMHCs and CO, while in Jeddah and Mecca a combination of sources needs to be considered. Very high NMHC levels were measured in Lahore, and elevated levels of CH4 in Lahore were attributed to natural gas. When we compared our results with 2010 emissions from the MACCity global inventory, we found discrepancies in the relative contribution of NMHCs between the measurements and the inventory. In all cities, alkenes (especially ethene and propene) dominated the hydroxyl radical (OH) reactivity (kOH) because of their great abundance and their relatively fast reaction rates with OH.

Association of fine particulate air pollution with cardiopulmonary morbidity in Western Coast of Saudi Arabia

Objectives: To assess cardiopulmonary morbidity associated with daily exposures to PM2.5 in Western Coast of Saudi Arabia. Methods: We monitored 24-h PM2.5 and its constituents including black carbon (BC), particulate sulfate (p-SO42–), nitrate (p-NO3–), ammonium (p-NH4+) and trace elements (TEs) at a site in Rabigh, Saudi Arabia from May to June 2013 with simultaneous collection of hospital data (N=2513). Cardiopulmonary morbidity risk was determined in a generalized linear time-series model. Results: Exposure to PM2.5 was associated with a 7.6% (p=0.056) increase in risk of respiratory disease (RD) in females. Black carbon increased RD morbidity risk by 68.1% (p=0.056) in females. Exposure to p-SO42– increased the cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk by up to 5.3% (p=0.048) in males; and RD by 2.9% (p=0.037) in females and 2.5% (p=0.022) in males. The p-NH4+ increased CVD risk by up to 20.3% (p=0.033) in males; and RD by 10.7% (p=0.014) in females and 8% (p=0.031) in males. No statistically significant association was observed for p-NO3– and TEs exposure. Conclusion: Overall, results show an increased risk for cardiopulmonary morbidity following exposure to air pollution.

Drainage water reuse or disposal, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Abstract The groundwater table in four districts of Jeddah city in Saudi Arabia is to be lowered by installing a sub-surface drainage system. In connection with the drainage studies, the suitability of the drainage water to irrigate recreational areas within the City was evaluated. If reuse was not feasible, the pollution potential of the drainage water for discharge to the coastal waters had to be determined. Quality of the sub-surface waters in the areas to be drained was characterized as follows: Physical parameters (temperature and turbidity); chemical parameters (pH, total dissolved solids, salinity, conductivity, ammonia nitrogen, chemical oxygen demand, and the major cations of calcium (Ca++), magnesium (Mg++), potassium (K+) and sodium (Na+) and anions of sulphate (SO4−−) chloride (Cl−), bicarbonate (HCO3−) and nitrate (NO3−); and, bacteriological parameter (fecal coliforms). Samples were collected from 31 shallow (3–5m) and from 4 deep observation wells (40–86 m). The study showed that the quality of the drainage water was highly saline and was not suitable for irrigation. However, the quality satisfied the standards of the Meteorology and Environmental Protection Agency for discharge to the Red Sea.

Fine particles exposure and cardiopulmonary morbidity in Jeddah: A time-series analysis

Health effects linked to PM2.5, have been extensively studied in developed countries of Europe and N. America. However, little has been done in Saudi Arabia and the Middle East. This study evaluated the morbidity risk for cardiovascular (CVD) and respiratory (RD) diseases, associated with PM2.5 exposure in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. 24-h PM2.5 sampling was conducted at 3 sites for 6 weeks quarterly from Apr 8th, 2013-Feb 18th, 2014 with simultaneous hospital data collection. The relative risks (RRs) for cardiopulmonary morbidity at different moving averages (MAs) of lagged exposures were estimated using a generalized linear time-series model. Elevated risks for RD were associated with recent PM2.5 exposures (0-2 days). RD prevalence was highest in children 0-14 years. Overall, RD morbidity risk ranged from 1.081 (CI: 1.005-1.162) to 1.096 (CI: 1.023-1.173) at MAs_2-4; male, 1.081 (CI: 1.019-1.146) to 1.087 (CI: 1.020-1.159) at MAs_2-3, and female, 1.086 (CI: 1.007-1.172) to 1.093 (CI: 1.017-1.175) at MAs_2-4. Generally, females 0-14 years were the most at risk for RDs with RR = 1.097 (CI: 1.025-1.174) to 1.148 (CI: 1.049-1.257). CVD morbidity risk was highest in ER visits with overall RR = 1.057 (CI: 1.005-1.111) to 1.137 (CI: 1.065-1.213) across all MAs; male, 1.060 (CI: 1.007-1.204) to 1.131 (CI: 1.060-1.208); female, 1.065 (CI: 1.008-1.125) to 1.116 (CI: 1.045-1.192). PM2.5 exposure showed significantly increased cardiopulmonary morbidity risk, accentuating the severe health effects associated with elevated PM2.5 in Jeddah. Overall, females (0-14 years) were more at risk for RD morbidity than males. CVD morbidity risk was relatively higher in males than females, with highest risk observed in age-groups above 40 years.

An assessment of air quality in the surrounding holy places of Mecca, Saudi Arabia during Hajj

B is a clean, renewable and abundant resource that can be converted to bio-char, bio-oil and fuel gas through various thermochemical processes. Conversion of biomass for high value products is an important development direction for biomass utilization, which has attracted more attention. In this study, a new method of biomass pyrolysis with exogenous nitrogen introduced was proposed. The influence of NH3 on the property of bamboo pyrolysis process and products characteristics was investigated with variant approaches (e.g. elemental analysis, automatic adsorption equipment, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and CHI760 electrochemical workstation) and as well as the influence of KOH (as activator). The results showed that, the specific surface area, the content of nitrogen and nitrogen-containing functional groups of bio-char increased significantly with NH3 introduced in. On the other hand, with the addition of KOH, the yield of bio-char increased obviously and it increased gradually with increasing KOH amount, and the specific surface area increased dramatically to 1873.17 m2 g-1. The content of nitrogen in bio-char increased greatly with KOH introduced in, especially the content of pyridinic-N and pyrrolic/pyridone-N, while it decreased slightly with increasing KOH amount, but nitrogen content was still relative high (9.1-10.4 wt.%). The formation mechanism of nitrogen-containing functional groups was proposed. Besides, electrochemical analysis showed that the specific capacitance of bio-char electrodes increased with increasing KOH content, and the largest specific capacitance could reach to 187 F g-1 at 1 A g-1 with good cycling stability. Therefore, it could be concluded that biomass nitrogen-enriched pyrolysis was a promising method for more efficient utilization of biomass resources.A insoluble palladium catalyst (Pd-pol) was obtained by copolymerization of the metal containing monomer Pd(AAEMA)2 [AAEMA− = deprotonated form of 2-(acetoacetoxy)ethyl methacrylate] with ethyl methacrylate (co-monomer) and ethylene glycol dimethacrylate (cross-linker), followed by in situ reduction of Pd(II) to Pd(0), to give polymer stabilized metal nanoparticles. The good swellability in water exhibited by Pd-pol rendered it an ideal potential catalyst for reactions carried out in a green solvent, such as water, since the migration of the reagents to the active sites would not be hampered by the solid support. With the aim to develop innovative catalytic processes that enable chemical transformations to be performed under mild and sustainable conditions with high efficiency, we decided to evaluate the catalytic activity of Pd-pol for several important organic reactions using water as solvent. Pd-pol resulted highly active and selective in catalyzing (figure 1): the Suzuki-Miyaura coupling between aryl bromides or activated aryl chlorides and phenylboronic acid; the oxidation of benzyl alcohols to aldehydes; the reduction of quinolines and nitroarenes by H2 or NaBH4. Pd-pol was recyclable for several consecutive runs (for example, at least 12 times in the nitroarene reduction). TEM analyses carried out on the catalyst showed that the active species were supported palladium nanoparticles having a mean size of 4 nm, which did not aggregate with the recycles. Recently, due to their low cost, Ni catalysts have been employed in several organic reactions (mainly hydrogenations). In this context, we synthetized a Ni catalyst similar to Pd-pol, starting from Ni(AAEMA)2 and we employed it as active and recyclable, insoluble catalyst for the reduction of different nitroarenes to give the corresponding anilines, under sustainable conditions. All these results proved that the proposed Pd or Ni based composite materials are excellent hybrid structures as efficient and reusable catalysts.A amino acids are versatile structures readily available by a number of methods and are accessible using very few transformations from economical starting materials. They can be functionalized by many chemical functions and offer a wide range of possible transformations. Particularly, unsaturated α-amino acids give access to many synthetic applications in all fields of chemistry. Among them, metal catalyzed cross-coupling reactions and cross metathesis are commonly used to generate peptide modifications and cyclization. They are very interesting and useful tools for “Click” Chemistry in peptidomimetic drug design or covalent modification of proteins. They can also be incorporated in compounds as beta-turn inducer to promote secondary structures. Finally they can be used for the preparation of stapled peptides. Some such amino acids are commercially attainable in enantiomerically pure form. Here, we present a stereoselective approach to synthesize unsaturated α-amino acids in optically active form. As a starting amino acid synthon for the asymmetric synthesis of amino acids NiII square-planar complexes of Schiff ’s bases of propargylglycine with chiral auxiliary (S)-2-N-(N`-benzyl-prolyl)aminobenzophenone (BPB) (1) was taken. As a result effective methods of asymmetric synthesis for novel enantiomerically enriched derivatives of (S)-propargylglycine (S)-propargylglycine (ee > 80%) was developed.