Posted on

The age of plastics

If you’ve ever spent time in a museum, you’ll note artifacts that date back thousands of years. They tell us pertinent information about the past — from lifestyle to medicinal treatments and everything in between.

It’s our history. But have you ever considered what will be uncovered in archaeological sites thousands of years from today? It’s highly likely it will be a whole lot of plastic, but where’s the value in that?

A new paper published in Cambridge Prisms: Plastics argues that while plastics get a bad rap and wreak sustainability havoc on the environment, they’ll be the defining “type fossils” of our era.

“The type fossils are not stone, metal, or ceramic, but plastic, creating an archaeological record that is resilient and toxic, as well as ubiquitous,” the paper says.

IMAGE: Shutterstock

Plastics travel all over — they’re resting in landfills, drifting in the oceans, freezing into polar ice, embedding in farm soils, lodging in animals and even orbiting Earth. They may shrink into micro-plastics and nanoplastics, but they never really go away.

The authors suggest plastics and “the behaviors responsible for their distribution, produce an archive that may hold some historical and evidential value for society.”

They say plastics at the moment of discard enters them into the archeological record, “comprising material culture that represents human activities occurring at any time in the past.”

Such a record could contribute to understanding the full environmental impact of plastic and indicate the worldview of the “Plastic Age.”

The bottom line? Plastics still bad, information good.

More like this: Google Earth shines light on ancient Roman camps

Posted on

Solar panel sunscreen

Solar panels, or photovoltaic panels (PVs) are a great clean energy solution. But while these PVs enjoy fun in the sun, extreme heat impacts their efficiency, resilience and ultimately their longevity.

The world’s scorching deserts are generally thought of as unforgiving environments, but the sizable, sun-exposed landscapes have proven suitable locations for vast solar parks.

Above 25 degrees Celsius, solar panel efficiency begins to slow. This is why researchers are on the hunt for ways to ensure climates with extreme temperatures, like the deserts of the Middle East, can capitalize on the numerous sunny days as efficiently as possible.

Researchers at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia have developed an all-natural hydrogel that might be the answer.

The gel, made up of everyday polymers and salts, behaves similar to a sponge. It absorbs water from the air at night and slowly releases the water as vapor during the day, cooling the panels more than 14 degrees Celsius.

The result is more energy conversion, panels that may last up to twice as long and lower price tags on maintenance and cooling systems.

More like this: Wear a coat

Posted on

To flock or not to flock

Bird-watching has been on the incline around the world since the pandemic, and according to Audubon Magazine, there are an estimated 96 million birders in the United States alone. This makes up more than 30 percent of U.S. adults. And these adult birders spent U.S.$107 billion in 2022 alone on anything and everything a birder needs. It makes sense, then, that the birding tourism industry is also on the rise, but birders are selective about their destinations. But it’s not just about the birds.

The birds are, of course, a big part of the draw to a specific location, but a recent study shows that social stability and a country’s development level play more of a role. Even the flashiest toucans won’t attract this tourism facet if they feel unsafe or upon arrival.

Countries like Costa Rica and Colombia are booming with birding tourism, but other nations like Venezuela, even with their feathered diversity, are missing out on those tourism dollars due to social or infrastructure obstacles.

The study published by the British Ecological Society concludes that assisting under-visited countries to build up their tourism facilities and safety could help local economies and in addition support conservation.

The challenge is that the growth of avitourism must be done responsibly, ensuring the benefits to local communities and support and protection of fragile ecosystems that could be negatively affected by a surge of curious eyes peering through binoculars.

More like this: Angry birds

Posted on

Sands of change

Sand dunes form when wind blows sand into piles, creating shapes depending on the wind speed and direction. Sand blows up the windward side of a dune and slides down the leeward side. Like a game of leapfrog, the dune slowly moves.

This movement is glacial — incremental movements as small as a grain of sand each time — but over time these movements add up. And climate change could change their speed, shape and direction.

Deserts around the world are already encroaching on civilization, threatening farmland and infrastructure. The rate at which dunes move varies, depending on the velocity of the wind and the topography of the region.

“Sand dunes in arid regions are conspicuous mobile landforms that require adaptation and mitigation strategies to protect human infrastructure and economic assets from encroachment, and (they) play a substantial role in desertification and atmospheric dust emissions,” says Andreas Baas, professor of aeolian geomorphology at King’s College London. “Desert dunes and sand seas cover approximately 20 percent of the world’s arid zones, and their morphology and patterning are an important diagnostic of environmental surface conditions, not only on Earth, but also on other planetary bodies.”

Baas’ latest research focused squarely on terrestrial sand as he and King’s College London colleague Lucie Delobel investigated how the shape, migration speed and direction of mobile desert dunes are projected to change by 2100 around the world in direct response to changes in wind patterns. The researchers say a changing wind climate plays a key role in this — and climate change is in the driver’s seat.

“We were surprised to find many regionally significant future increases in potential sand drift and changes in wind regime, which can impact the migration and shape of desert dunes,” Baas tells KUST Review. “The general assumption previously was that global warming leads to smaller temperature differences around the world (because poleward regions are heating up more) and that these smaller temperature differences would lead to weaker winds. We found that the poleward expansion of monsoon systems in particular will have a major impact on dunes in places like Oman and Mauritania.”

Baas points out that while most dunes around the world are unlikely to change their shape due to changes in winds, around 10 percent will, and some dune fields are likely to change their direction of movement.

Watch: The Global Impact of Middle East Dust Storms

“We found that 73 percent of the current desert dune areas are projected to experience a significantly different drift potential,” Baas says. Drift potential is defined as the total amount of sand transportation by wind. “Around one-third of desert dune areas will see an increase, while the other two-thirds will see a decrease.”

CAPTION: These photos are not of tropical forests in Brazil nor the country side of Italy, but of south of Saudi Arabia. IMAGE: Shutterstock
Longer springs, warmer nights

The arid and semi-arid regions in northern Africa and southwest Asia have been expanding, exacerbated by rapid population growth and climate warming, according to a study in Scientific Reports from Khalifa University’s Diana Francis and Ricardo Fonseca. Read more›››

The study investigates atmospheric circulation changes and their effects on clouds, moisture, dust and radiation across northern and equatorial Africa, southern Europe, the Middle East and southwest Asia.
The researchers note that daily nighttime temperatures are increasing faster than daytime temperatures, particularly in summer, due to higher atmospheric moisture and dust levels.

In winter, convective regions have shifted eastward in Africa, increasing low-level clouds in subtropical regions and shifting dusty areas southward. Future climate projections (2066-2100) suggest longer springs and shorter autumns.

The subtropical highs over North Africa and the Arabian Peninsula are projected to migrate poleward by 1.5 degrees in latitude, a trend statistically significant at 95 percent confidence level, in line with the projected expansion of the Hadley Cells. The Hadley Cells are the convective cells over the tropics. As they expand, the southern Arabian Peninsula (currently subtropics) may shift toward a tropical-like climate with increased rainfall frequency per year

The study highlights the importance of accurate, high-resolution climate models that account for dust and pollutants in the MENA region. Such models, the researchers note, are crucial for reliable climate projections and for supporting climate resilience and mitigation initiatives, including the transition to renewable energy sources.‹‹‹ Read less

Dune movement will still be very slow and incremental, but over time it could cause serious problems to infrastructure and the fragile ecosystems surrounding areas of sand.

“In many desert countries, the layout of settlements and infrastructure has been historically adapted to the local dune shapes and dynamics,” Baas says. “In the UAE, for example, there are many villages and infrastructure — even airports — that are built in between long seif dunes that run from west to east. If those seifs break up into smaller dunes, they may migrate towards a more southerly direction and those settlements will become buried by sand. In other places, such as Rajasthan, sand dunes may migrate faster and become a bigger problem to deal with where they’re overrunning agricultural fields.”

The researchers note that changes in dune behavior may need to be considered in planning and management efforts as mitigations designed for the current wind climate, such as sand fences and green belts, may become locally less effective — under a changing wind direction, for example — or even unnecessary, if dunes transform from a migrating to an elongating type. More precise models are needed for site-specific recommendations.

“The planet’s history has seen many vast changes in deserts and dune fields in its long history, but now is the first time that humans have come along and have built assets in between the dunes,” Baas says. “Our projections based on a global climate-change model suggest that potential sand drift in the UAE may decrease somewhat in the future, but these global models are not good at representing regionally important weather events like the shamal. And other studies predict that such extreme events will become stronger, in which case future shamal winds may kick up more dust and move more sand.”

More like this: Dust busters

Posted on

High seas

The UAE is renowned for its ambitious engineering projects, including five sets of human-made islands. These islands, however, may become vulnerable to rising sea levels caused by climate change. That’s why the UAE is working now to fortify these land masses and more.

Research in the UAE uses remote-sensing data, sea-level projections and coastal hydrodynamic models to assess the impact of rising seas along the country’s coastlines. This research has identified the country’s low-lying and shallow-sloping geography as particularly vulnerable.

“These models allow us to simulate the impacts of rising sea levels under various scenarios,” says Dr. Maryam Rashid AlShehhi, who researches reefs and reef restoration at Khalifa University.

LISTEN TO THIS STORY HERE

Research teams have identified two critical risk areas: displacement and economic instability due to flooding and erosion; and ecosystems and communities in low-lying areas, encompassing natural habitats and developed regions in low-elevation coastal zones.

“These areas face high risks of habitat loss, increased flood frequency and ecological degradation. For example, coral reefs, which rely on stable water conditions, face stress from both rising sea levels and potential increases in turbidity and sedimentation due to coastal erosion. Saltwater intrusion is another concern, as it can compromise freshwater supplies and agricultural productivity in coastal areas, leading to broader socio-economic effects,” AlShehhi tells KUST Review.

Illustration: Abjad Design
Why climate change causes rising seas

As the oceans warm due to an increasing global temperature, seawater expands — taking up more space in the ocean basin and causing a rise in water level. The second mechanism is the melting of ice over land (in polar regions and mountains), which then adds water to the ocean. — U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

To combat this, breakwaters have been constructed along the coasts of Ras al Khaimah and Fujairah, and Abu Dhabi is mandating seawalls for upcoming waterfront developments.

But sustainable methods will also be used.

One method involves mangroves, which not only act as a carbon sink, but also protect the coastline.

Their dense biomass and intricate root systems can withstand powerful waves, including those from hurricanes, and thrive in oxygen-poor coastal soils. Mangroves excel at trapping sediment from rivers and oceans, which is both a strength and a vulnerability. While sediment accumulation around their roots helps build land, a disruption in sediment supply leaves the plants vulnerable.

In 2023, Arabian Gulf Business Insight reported that the Environment Agency — Abu Dhabi in partnership with environmental tech company Dendra embarked on a project to plant 27 million mangrove trees in Abu Dhabi by 2030. This is part of the UAE target of 100 million mangrove trees within the same timeline.

“The UAE also uses artificial reefs and ‘living shorelines,’ which combine vegetation, sand and other natural elements to create more resilient and eco-friendly shorelines,” AlShehhi says. “Several projects have been supported on artificial intelligence-driven solutions for real-time monitoring and adaptive responses.”

Other collaborations will address the challenge of rising sea levels. Khalifa University recently worked in conjunction with the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment (MOCCAE) and other universities and organizations to produce a national report on the impact of climate change on the environment.

These areas face high risks of habitat loss, increased flood frequency and ecological degradation.

– Maryam Rashid AlShehhi, assistant professor of
civil & environmental engineering at Khalifa University

Additionally, the UAE Climate Change Research Network, led by MOCCAE, brings together universities, research institutions and government agencies to share data, initiate research and develop policy focused on addressing climate challenges like sea-level rise. Diana Francis of Khalifa University leads the network’s Cluster on Climate Data and Modeling.

These are only a fraction of collaborations in action locally and regionally.

“By enhancing natural defenses, the UAE strengthens its resilience against rising sea levels and extreme weather, which aligns with broader regional efforts to prepare for climate impacts. The UAE’s focus on restoring mangroves, seagrasses and coral reefs promotes biodiversity, supporting marine ecosystems that are critical for fisheries, tourism and ecological balance, which is in line with regional priorities to preserve natural habitats.

The UAE’s sustainable practices set a regional example, encouraging neighboring countries to adopt similar approaches,” AlShehhi says.

More like this: Vertical farms and 3D-printed reefs part of UAE’s plans for food security