scholarly journals Outdoor Thermal Comfort Study on a District Level as Part of the Housing Programs in Abu Dhabi and Al Ain, United Arab Emirates

Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 264
Author(s):  
Lindita Bande ◽  
Rahma Adan ◽  
Kim Young ◽  
Raghad Ghazal ◽  
Mukesh Jha ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Comfort ◽  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Outdoor Thermal Comfort ◽  
Abu Dhabi ◽  
The Public ◽  
Housing Programs ◽  
Air Temperatures ◽  
Local Sustainability ◽  
Al Ain ◽  
Shading Devices

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has witnessed fast growth in urban development in the past four decades. A plan to build 7270 houses by 2021 has been initiated by the local authorities. Different local sustainability guidelines are being implemented, including the Public Realm Manual in Abu Dhabi. These local guidelines are tailored to consider the hot and arid climate of the UAE as well as the applied materials, the inclusion of greenery, shading devices, etc. Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Al Ain are cities that have imposed the application of such guidelines. Additionally, the newly developed housing programs match the governmental plan. To understand the effect of these design programs on the outdoor thermal comfort (OTC), further investigations are necessary for each city. The most widely built prototype is detached villas, which result in untreated waste areas without shading or greenery. In the old local neighborhoods, Arabic houses were built next to each other to maximize the shading and to ease pedestrians’ walkability. This study aims to examine the districts where the housing programs are applied and to determine the most effective strategy to minimize the outdoor air temperatures and enhance walkability. The methodology implements the following processes in order: district analyses of the buildings as well as the externally applied materials, microclimate site measurements, ENVI-met (main software used) models of the current and future scenarios, results and recommendations. The strategies have different impacts in both cites due to the microclimate and other conditions.

Atmospheric electric field measurements in the central United Arab Emirates

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Keri Nicoll ◽  
R. Giles Harrison ◽  
Graeme Marlton ◽  
Martin Airey
Keyword(s):  
Electric Field ◽  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Daily Variation ◽  
Sea Breeze ◽  
Abu Dhabi ◽  
Atmospheric Electric Field ◽  
Fair Weather ◽  
Al Ain ◽  
Dust Charging ◽  
Convection Dominated

<p>Measurements of the atmospheric electric field (or Potential Gradient, PG) in arid, desert regions are few in comparison to those in more wet/mid latitude regions, despite the fact that such measurements can provide important insights into dust charging processes. Dust charging is emerging as potentially important in sustaining the long range transport of particles, for which new charge and field data are essential. Here we present new PG data from an electric field mill at Al Ain international airport in the eastern part of the Abu Dhabi Emirate in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).  Measurements were made alongside a visibility sensor and ceilometer to provide information on the background meteorological conditions.  At Al Ain, the conditions are generally fair weather in mid-latitude terms (predominantly no clouds or precipitation), with very occasional fog or thunderstorms, but the PG still demonstrates considerable variability associated with local factors such as dust and aerosol content.  Throughout the data series, the PG is almost entirely positive, with the only negative values occurring during thunderstorms and violent dust storms.  The desert climate of the UAE lead to widespread uplift of dust on a regular basis, as evidenced by the generally low visibility measured at the airport (mean visibility = 9km).  The PG at Al Ain was found to be generally much larger than typical fair weather values at other sites, with a mean of 116 V/m, with 2 kV/m exceeded regularly.  The local influences on the PG at Al Ain are strongly apparent and the daily variation in PG was found to fall into two main categories: 1) convection dominated, 2) sea breeze dominated.   On the convection dominated days the PG followed the daily variation in temperature and wind speed closely, with very large maximum values of PG up to 4 kV/m in the mid afternoon.  The other regular daily feature in Al Ain PG was a sharp positive increase in PG up to several kV/m around 1800-1900 local time.  This feature is associated with the arrival of a sea breeze front, which originates more than 150 km away on the Abu Dhabi coastline.  The extremely large change in PG over a very short time scale (tens of minutes) is thought to be due to the action of dust pickup within the sea breeze front as it travels substantial distances over the flat arid landscape.  Overall, the electrical environment at Al Ain is found to be generally very highly charged and so the local effects (primarily from dust and aerosol) mask Global Electric Circuit influences in the surface data.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p> </p>

Sustainability Considerations of Concrete Mixes Incorporating Slag as Partial Replacement of Cement in Concrete in the UAE

2016 ◽  
Vol 677 ◽  
pp. 217-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Afrah Al-Shaibani ◽  
Reem Sabouni
Keyword(s):  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Capital City ◽  
Rating System ◽  
Abu Dhabi ◽  
Partial Replacement ◽  
Sustainable Concrete ◽  
Local Sustainability ◽  
To Come ◽  
Culture And Climate ◽  
Enormous Number

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is one of the largest consumers of concrete in the region due to the enormous number of mega reinforced concrete projects constructed in the country. The harsh weather of the UAE, where temperature may reach to above 45 °C and the humidity at coastal areas up to 100%, requires special attention to the design of the concrete mixes used in these projects to make sure that they meet the strength requirement and satisfy the sustainability condition. To insure the sustainability of the projects constructed in the UAE a local sustainability rating system called “Estidama” was developed by Abu Dhabi Urban Planning Council. The Estidama sustainability rating system is equivalent to the LEED, but tailored to the special culture and climate of the UAE and the region. This system is mainly implemented in the UAE’s capital city Abu Dhabi and gaining more publicity in the region. The main objective of this paper is to evaluate collected concrete mixes implemented in some major projects in the UAE’s based on Estidama’s requirements, and to come up with an optimization process to choose the most sustainable concrete that satisfies the mechanical properties requirements, durability requirements and has the least embodied CO2 emission. This research will concentrate on concrete mixes commonly used in the UAE with emphasises on those incorporating slag as a partial replacement of cement in concrete.

scholarly journals Climate change in the UAE: Modeling air temperature using ARIMA and STI across four bio-climatic zones

F1000Research ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 973
Author(s):  
Taoufik Saleh Ksiksi ◽  
Latifa Saeed Al-Blooshi
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Moving Average ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Abu Dhabi ◽  
Spatial And Temporal Scales ◽  
Climatic Regions ◽  
Box Plots ◽  
Al Ain ◽  
The Impact

Background: Standardizing climate-related indices and models across spatial and temporal scales presents a challenge. Especially when predicting climatic conditions in the era of climate change. The present work aims to assess the use of ARIMA (Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average) modeling approach coupled with STI (Standardized Temperature Index) to predict temperature anomalies across four bio-climatic regions within the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Methods: We used monthly temperature data from NOAA Land-Based Station Data for Abu Dhabi, Al-Ain, Dubai and Sharjah. ARIMA modeling and STI assessment of climatic events were used to predict and study the dynamics of climate of the four zones. The use of such forecasting powers was intended for an ultimate aim to study the impact of climate change on land use and land cover changes. Results: Data were not auto-correlated as shown by the Box-Ljung test. Additionally, the box-plots showed that Abu Dhabi had the highest median temperature. The ARIMA forecasting suggested that Dubai is predicted to have increasing trend of average temperatures until 2030. "Extremely hot" events were highest for Al-Ain (i.e. 9), followed by Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah. Dubai had the highest occurrences of "Moderately hot" events, when compared to all other studied zones. Further, events classified as "very cold" were in the order of 20, 10, and 8, for Dubai, Sharjah, and for each of Abu Dhabi and Al-Ain, respectively. Conclusions: The temperature is predicted to increase in Dubai and Sharjah, with each representing a different bio-climatic zone. This was also reflected in the STI assessment of the historical temperature.  "Moderately hot" and "very cold" events for Dubai were the highest as compared to the other studied zones in the UAE. It is therefore believed that ARIMA, coupled with STI, may be a valid approach to forecast temperature and analyse extreme events.

Social Networking

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-27
Author(s):  
Zoheir Ezziane
Keyword(s):  
Information System ◽  
Social Networking ◽  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Management Information System ◽  
Abu Dhabi ◽  
Special Focus ◽  
Al Ain ◽  
Distribution Company ◽  
Wholly Owned Subsidiary ◽  
Customer Services

The aim of this chapter is to illustrate how social networking could be used as a tool to empower people and organizations to get connected and share similar ideas and endeavors. It demonstrates the benefits when organizations employ social networking as an e-service tool to engage both consumers and businesses alike. In this chapter, a special focus is attributed to Al Ain Distribution Company (AADC), a wholly owned subsidiary of Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Authority, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). AADC has implemented novel e-services for the purpose of improving customer services and incorporate social networking within its existing management information system (MIS). This work has been instrumental in not only showing advantages of using social networking at AADC but also helping the company to address various consumer needs and enhancing its e-services.

scholarly journals Application of a Nighttime Fog Detection Method Using SEVIRI Over an Arid Environment

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (14) ◽  
pp. 2281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Weston ◽  
Marouane Temimi
Keyword(s):  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Arid Environment ◽  
Probability Of Detection ◽  
Abu Dhabi ◽  
Transport Systems ◽  
Soil Conditions ◽  
Infrared Imager ◽  
Al Ain ◽  
Meteorological Observations ◽  
Fog Dynamics

Fog degrades horizontal visibility causing significant adverse impacts on transport systems. The detection of fog from satellite data remains challenging especially in the presence of higher clouds, dust, mist, or unknown underlying soil conditions. Observations from Meteosat second generation Spinning-Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (MSG SEVIRI) over the United Arab Emirates (UAE), an arid area on the Arabian Peninsula, from 2016 to 2018 (two fog seasons) are used in this study. We implement an adaptive threshold-based technique using pseudo-emissivity values to detect nocturnal fog from SEVIRI. The method allows the threshold to vary spatially and temporally. Low clouds are detected with the analysis of the vertical temperature gradient. Fog classification was verified against four stations in the UAE, namely Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Al Ain, and Al Maktoum, where visibility and meteorological observations are available. The probability of detection (POD) (false alarm ratio (FAR)) was 0.81 (0.40), 0.83 (0.50), 0.83 (0.33), and 0.77 (0.44) at Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Al Ain, and Al Maktoum, respectively. In addition, the spatial frequency of fog is presented, which provides new insights into the fog dynamics in the region.

scholarly journals Outdoor Thermal Comfort and Building Energy Use Potential in Different Land-Use Areas in Tropical Cities: Case of Kuala Lumpur

Atmosphere ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (6) ◽  
pp. 652
Author(s):  
Yasemin D. Aktas ◽  
Kai Wang ◽  
Yu Zhou ◽  
Murnira Othman ◽  
Jenny Stocker ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Thermal Comfort ◽  
Energy Use ◽  
Building Energy ◽  
Outdoor Thermal Comfort ◽  
Kuala Lumpur ◽  
Air Temperatures ◽  
Building Energy Use ◽  
Urban Heat ◽  
The Impact

High air temperature and high humidity, combined with low wind speeds, are common trends in the tropical urban climates, which collectively govern heat-induced health risks and outdoor thermal comfort under the given hygrothermal conditions. The impact of different urban land-uses on air temperatures is well-documented by many studies focusing on the urban heat island phenomenon; however, an integrated study of air temperature and humidity, i.e., the human-perceived temperatures, in different land-use areas is essential to understand the impact of hot and humid tropical urban climates on the thermal comfort of urban dwellers for an appraisal of potential health risks and the associated building energy use potential. In this study, we show through near-surface monitoring how these factors vary in distinct land-use areas of Kuala Lumpur city, characterized by different morphological features (high-rise vs. low-rise; compact vs. open), level of anthropogenic heating and evapotranspiration (built-up vs. green areas), and building materials (concrete buildings vs. traditional Malay homes in timber) based on the calculated heat index (HI), apparent temperature (TApp) and equivalent temperature (TE) values in wet and dry seasons. The results show that the felt-like temperatures are almost always higher than the air temperatures in all land-use areas, and this difference is highest in daytime temperatures in green areas during the dry season, by up to about 8 °C (HI)/5 °C (TApp). The TE values are also up to 9% higher in these areas than in built-up areas. We conclude that tackling urban heat island without compromising thermal comfort levels, hence encouraging energy use reduction in buildings to cope with outdoor conditions requires a careful management of humidity levels, as well as a careful selection of building morphology and materials.

scholarly journals Application and performance of Kestrel sensors for assessing thermal comfort in outdoor built environments

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisette Klok ◽  
Erica Caverzam Barbosa ◽  
Luc van Zandbrink ◽  
Jeroen Kluck
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Thermal Comfort ◽  
Air Temperature ◽  
Urban Spaces ◽  
Outdoor Thermal Comfort ◽  
Simple Type ◽  
Built Environments ◽  
The Sun ◽  
Physiological Equivalent Temperature ◽  
Air Temperatures

<p>In face of climate change and urbanization, the need for thermally comfortable outdoor urban spaces is increasing. In the design of the thermally comfortable urban spaces and decision making about interventions that enhance thermal comfort, scientists and professionals that work for cities use meteorological measurements and models. These measurements can be done by professional and accurate meteorological sensors, but also by simpler mobile instruments such as the easy-to-use Kestrel weather meters. In using these simple type of sensors, it is important to know what the performance of these sensors is for outdoor thermal comfort assessments and how they can be used by scientists and professionals in decision making about urban designs that enhance thermal comfort.</p><p>To answer these questions, we carried out three experiments in the summer of 2020 in Amsterdam, in which we tested the 11 Kestrel 5400 heat stress sensors and assessed the performance of this equipment for thermal comfort studies. We concluded that Kestrel sensors can be used very well for assessing differences in air temperature and PET (Physiological Equivalent Temperature) between outdoor built environments. For both air temperature and PET, the RMSE between the 11 Kestrel sensors was 0.5 °C maximum when measuring the same conditions. However, Kestrel sensors that were placed in the sun without a wind vane mounted to the equipment showed large radiation errors. In this case, temperature differences up to 3.4 °C were observed compared to Kestrels that were shaded. The effect of a higher air temperature on the PET calculation is, however, surprisingly small. A sensitivity analysis showed that an increase of 3 °C in the air temperature results in a maximal PET reduction of 0.5 °C. We concluded that Kestrel sensors can very well be used for assessing differences between air temperatures and PET between two locations and assessing the thermal effects of urban designs, but care should be taken when air temperature measurements are carried out in the sun. We always recommend using the wind vanes to deviate from high radiant input orientations for the temperature sensor, and placing the stations next to each other at the beginning and at the end of the measurements to check whether the stations actually measure the same values. Any differences can be corrected afterwards.</p>

Department of Tourism and Culture – Abu Dhabi: transforming the desert into a city

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Mariam Hamad Al Dhaheri ◽  
Syed Zamberi Ahmad
Keyword(s):  
Strategic Management ◽  
United Arab Emirates ◽  
Critical Mass ◽  
Business Strategies ◽  
Abu Dhabi ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Eastern Region ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Al Ain ◽  
Tourism And Hospitality

Supplementary materials Teaching notes are available upon request. Learning outcomes The purpose of this paper is to enable tourism management and strategic management students to evaluate and analyze tourism activities in the United Arab Emirates by TCA. Students will gain a comprehensive understanding of developing tourism in rural areas in the United Arab Emirates and to build up proper strategies. They will be able to perform the organization’s competitive standing using Porter’s Five competitive forces and analyze its business strategies as well. They will be able to analyze the current status of the organization using SWOT analysis and to design alternative strategies for the company using TOWS analysis. Case overview/synopsis The Department of Tourism and Culture – Abu Dhabi, also known as the TCA, is a governmental tourism authority in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi established 14 years ago as part of an economy-diversifying strategy for the non-oil era. The TCA is responsible of creating tourism activities to generate new tourists in Abu Dhabi, which will increase the revenue of the authority and as well increase the gross domestic product of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) economy. Tourism activities have been focused on Abu Dhabi City as is it considered the capital city of the UAE. However, other cities are also part of this strategy, e.g. Al Ain City, which is located in the eastern region of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, and Al Dhafra City, which is located in the western region of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, both of which lack the required infrastructure, population, and tourism activity, due in part at least to the fact that the TCA’s strategy plans have been focused on Abu Dhabi City. Sultan Al Mutawa Al Dhaheri (Al Dhaheri), the TCA’s Executive Director of Tourism, has been responsible for developing tourism in Al Ain City and Al Dhafra, but due to the current situation of the two cities regarding the low revenue growth (and the consequent lack of investors willing to invest) and no critical mass (i.e. a sufficient number of hotel rooms available), Al Dhaheri is facing a dilemma regarding achieving TCA strategy in Al Ain City and Al Dhafra City. Complexity academic level This case study will be useful for undergraduate and postgraduate level students majoring in Tourism and Hospitality Management, Business Administration and Strategic Management. Subject code CSS 12: Tourism and Hospitality.

scholarly journals A New Method to Assess Fine-Scale Outdoor Thermal Comfort for Urban Agglomerations

Climate ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 6
Author(s):  
Dirk Lauwaet ◽  
Bino Maiheu ◽  
Koen De Ridder ◽  
Wesley Boënne ◽  
Hans Hooyberghs ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Heat Stress ◽  
Thermal Comfort ◽  
Rural Areas ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Urban Heat Islands ◽  
Outdoor Thermal Comfort ◽  
Urban Agglomerations ◽  
Human Thermal Comfort ◽  
Air Temperatures ◽  
Water Surfaces

In urban areas, high air temperatures and heat stress levels greatly affect human thermal comfort and public health, with climate change further increasing the mortality risks. This study presents a high resolution (100 m) modelling method, including detailed offline radiation calculations, that is able to efficiently calculate outdoor heat stress for entire urban agglomerations for a time period spanning several months. A dedicated measurement campaign was set up to evaluate model performance, yielding satisfactory results. As an example, the modelling tool was used to assess the effectiveness of green areas and water surfaces to cool air temperatures and wet bulb globe temperatures during a typical hot day in the city of Ghent (Belgium), since the use of vegetation and water bodies are shown to be promising in mitigating the adverse effects of urban heat islands and improving thermal comfort. The results show that air temperature reduction is most profound over water surfaces during the afternoon, while open rural areas are coolest during the night. Radiation shading from trees, and to a lesser extent, from buildings, is found to be most effective in reducing wet bulb globe temperatures and improving thermal comfort during the warmest moments of the day.

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