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Abstract Mashrabiya is one of the primary features of Arab-Islamic architecture which can be found and still used in different cities around the world. It can be defined as an opening covered with wooden lattice for ventilation, daylight, privacy, and an aesthetic appeal for houses. The motivation for this work stems from the lack of existing field studies on the ventilation and thermal performance of buildings incorporated with Mashrabiya and the potential to enhance its capabilities by combining it with different passive cooling techniques. The present study aims to investigate the influence of Mashrabiya on the indoor environment in a traditional building situated in a hot climate. The case study selected for this work is the Baeshen House which is located in the heart of historic Jeddah and the area with the most traditional Mashrabiyas in Saudi Arabia. The field data of air temperature, relative humidity, globe temperature, and air velocity were collected for two similar rooms (one open Mashrabiya and one close) in the building during typical hot summer conditions when the outdoor temperature ranged between 40 and 41.6 °C in the afternoon. Different techniques of passive/evaporative cooling strategy were integrated with the Mashrabiya: thermal mass, water pots, water spray, and cloth. The results showed that the closed Mashrabiya contributed to reducing the flow of hot air into rooms during the afternoon, and the indoor temperature was maintained at 35.4–35.8 °C. Increasing the speed of airflow into the room by opening the Mashrabiya had a minimal effect during the afternoon, but it was observed that the night cooling improved. It was found that the most effective strategy was the use of wetted cloth near the inlet of the Mashrabiya (33.8 °C indoor average when the outdoor temperature was at 41.6 °C). The study demonstrated that comfortable conditions could be attained between 1 and 9 a.m. during hot summer conditions. Overall, the Mashrabiya with evaporative cooling was not able to provide comfort during the midday, and other strategies should be considered for hot summer conditions. Future work will focus on investigating different materials and strategies to enhance the performance of Mashrabiyas.

Phytoplankton underpin the marine food web in shelf seas, with some species having properties that are harmful to human health and coastal aquaculture. Pressures such as climate change and anthropogenic nutrient input are hypothesized to influence phytoplankton community composition and distribution. Yet the primary environmental drivers in shelf seas are poorly understood. To begin to address this in North Western European waters, the phytoplankton community composition was assessed in light of measured physical and chemical drivers during the "Ellett Line" cruise of autumn 2001 across the Scottish Continental shelf and into adjacent open Atlantic waters. Spatial variability existed in both phytoplankton and environmental conditions, with clear differences not only between on and off shelf stations but also between different on shelf locations. Temperature/salinity plots demonstrated different water masses existed in the region. In turn, principal component analysis (PCA), of the measured environmental conditions (temperature, salinity, water density and inorganic nutrient concentrations) clearly discriminated between shelf and oceanic stations on the basis of DIN:DSi ratio that was correlated with both salinity and temperature. Discrimination between shelf stations was also related to this ratio, but also the concentration of DIN and DSi. The phytoplankton community was diatom dominated, with multidimensional scaling (MDS) demonstrating spatial variability in its composition. Redundancy analysis (RDA) was used to investigate the link between environment and the phytoplankton community. This demonstrated a significant relationship between community composition and water mass as indexed by salinity (whole community), and both salinity and DIN:DSi (diatoms alone). Diatoms of the Pseudo-nitzschia seriata group occurred at densities potentially harmful to shellfish aquaculture, with the potential for toxicity being elevated by the likelihood of DSi limitation of growth at most stations and depths.

Abstract Cooling towers are evaporative devices for removing heat in several applications such as air conditioning in buildings and industrial processes. In this work a comprehensive experiment to study the drift deposition from a mechanical draft cooling tower located in an urban environment was conducted, because of the lack of data in the literature. To predict the area affected by the cooling tower drift deposition is interesting both for its environmental impact assessment, and for the detection of the origin of an outbreak of Legionnaire's disease. The objective of the experiment was the measurement of the amount of drift water emitted and deposited from the cooling tower. Secondary objectives were to establish a database for use in drift deposition model validation and to analyze the interaction between ambient variables on downwind deposition. These objectives were met by the simultaneous measurement of cooling tower source emission parameters, meteorological variables (registered by a 40 m tall meteorological tower) and drift deposition during four test runs. The sensitive paper technique was employed. Regarding downwind deposition patterns, deposited water and characteristic droplet size decreased as the distance from the tower increased. Variations of 70% of deposited water were found in the measurements at close distances to the tower when the wind velocity level was low. Wind direction also affected the deposition level. Averaged differences of about 45% were observed between the results obtained for the wind blowing from the northwest or the southeast.

Managing energy consumption in buildings is of utmost importance given the fact that 20% of the total energy consumed worldwide comes from the buildings sector. The miniaturization of electronic and mechanical systems, together with low-power wireless communications, facilitate the development and deployment of building energy management systems (BEMS) based on Internet of Things (IoT) platforms. It is well known that IoT solutions create silos suffering from interoperability issues. In this paper, we propose an expert system based on the W3C Web of Things (WoT), a paradigm that seeks to counter the interoperability issues in the IoT. The proposed system implements a set of rules, fed by a time series database, that mange several sensors and actuators addressed through Web technologies using WoT. The goal of this expert system is to be the core of a BEMS, and thus, it will be able to optimize energy consumption as well as to enable smart retrofit of existing buildings. In addition, the expert system is combined with a graphical user interface featuring several web-based dashboards, making it possible for an administrator to remotely supervise the operation of the whole building.

Impacts of climate change on natural and human systems will become increasingly severe as the magnitude of climate change increases. Climate change adaptation interventions to address current and projected impacts are thus paramount. Yet, evidence on their effectiveness remains limited, highlighting the need for appropriate ecological indicators to measure progress of climate change adaptation for the natural environment. We outline conceptual, analytical, and practical challenges in developing such indicators, before proposing a framework with three process-based and two results-based indicator types to track progress in adapting to climate change. We emphasize the importance of dynamic assessment and modification over time, as new adaptation targets are set and/or as intervention actions are monitored and evaluated. Our framework and proposed indicators are flexible and widely applicable across species, habitats, and monitoring programmes, and could be accommodated within existing national or international frameworks to enable the evaluation of both large-scale policy instruments and local management interventions. We conclude by suggesting further work required to develop these indicators fully, and hope this will stimulate the use of ecological indicators to evaluate the effectiveness of policy interventions for the adaptation of the natural environment across the globe.

AbstractAimBiological invasions are major contributors to global change and native biodiversity decline. However, they are overlooked in marine conservation plans. Here, we examine for the first time the extent to which marine conservation planning research has addressed (or ignored) biological invasions. Furthermore, we explore the change of spatial priorities in conservation plans when different approaches are used to incorporate the presence and impacts of invasive species.LocationGlobal analysis with a focus on the Mediterranean Sea region.MethodsWe conducted a systematic literature review consisting of three steps: (1) article selection using a search engine, (2) abstract screening and (3) review of pertinent articles, which were identified in the second step. The information extracted included the scale and geographical location of each case study as well as the approach followed regarding invasive species. We also applied the softwareMarxanto produce and compare conservation plans for the Mediterranean Sea that either protect, or avoid areas impacted by invasives, or ignore the issue. One case study focused on the protection of critical habitats, and the other on endemic fish species.ResultsWe found that of 119 papers on marine spatial plans in specific biogeographic regions, only three (2.5%) explicitly took into account invasive species. When comparing the different conservation plans for each case study, we found that the majority of selected sites for protection (ca. 80%) changed in the critical habitat case study, while this proportion was lower but substantial (27%) in the endemic fish species case study.Main conclusionsBiological invasions are being widely disregarded when planning for conservation in the marine environment across local to global scales. More explicit consideration of biological invasions can significantly alter spatial conservation priorities. Future conservation plans should explicitly account for biological invasions to optimize the selection of marine protected areas.

Populations of fishes provide valuable services for billions of people, but face diverse and interacting threats that jeopardize their sustainability. Human population growth and intensifying resource use for food, water, energy and goods are compromising fish populations through a variety of mechanisms, including overfishing, habitat degradation and declines in water quality. The important challenges raised by these issues have been recognized and have led to considerable advances over past decades in managing and mitigating threats to fishes worldwide. In this review, we identify the major threats faced by fish populations alongside recent advances that are helping to address these issues. There are very significant efforts worldwide directed towards ensuring a sustainable future for the world's fishes and fisheries and those who rely on them. Although considerable challenges remain, by drawing attention to successful mitigation of threats to fish and fisheries we hope to provide the encouragement and direction that will allow these challenges to be overcome in the future.