Miklas Scholz

University of Salford · School of Computing, Science and Engineering

Groundwater recharge zone identification is vital for managing water resources, particularly in semi-arid and dry climates. Accurate and quantifiable assessment is necessary for the sustainable management of groundwater resources, and it is possible to carry this method out using modern techniques and technical standards. To identify likely groundw...

This study presents an innovative approach for predicting water and groundwater quality indices (WQI and GWQI) in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia, addressing critical challenges of scarcity and pollution in arid regions. Recent literature highlights the increasing attention towards WQI based on water pollution index (WPI) and GWQI as essential...

The agricultural sector faces challenges in managing water resources efficiently, particularly in arid regions dealing with water scarcity. To overcome water stress, treated wastewater (TWW) is increasingly utilized for irrigation purpose to conserve available freshwater resources. There are several critical aspects affecting the suitability of TWW...

Climate may regulate dissolved organic carbon (DOC) composition across the peat‐water interface, but experimental evidence is scarce. We manipulated the climate in peatland and recipient surface water mesocosms to reflect four different climate warming scenarios. In half of the mesocosms, the water level was managed to avoid drought, after which re...

Selecting appropriate climate change scenarios is crucial, as it influences the outcomes of climate change impact studies. Several storylines could be used to investigate the sensitivity of water resource schemes to weather variability and improve policymakers' adaptation strategies. This study proposes a comprehensive and generic methodology for a...

Despite the many articles about activated carbon with different precursors in adsorption process, no in-depth research has been carried out to understand the causes of the difference in surface adsorption characteristics of activated carbon with different precursors and different activation processes. In this work, the ability of two active carbon...

As an alternative wood source for biochar and a cost-effective renewable energy source, sustainable biomass production based on fast-growing willows irrigated with treated wastewater has been explored. Salix alba L. and Salix viminalis L. were selected for assessment of their potentially high woody biomass productivity and phytoremediation efficien...

Availability of groundwater has been largely impacted by climate change worldwide, especially in arid and semi-arid areas where water is limited. In arid and semi-arid areas, which are heavily rely on groundwater to meet their water demands, there is a high risk of excessive use of groundwater, particularly during successive dry periods. This paper...

Capillary suction time (CST) and specific resistance to filtration (SRF) are widely accepted measurements to test for sludge dewaterability properties. Previous investigations indicated that CST and SRF are strongly inter-related for most relevant variables. Only few investigations have shown no correlation between CST and SRF. This study aims to a...

Agriculture has significantly aided in meeting the food needs of growing population. In addition, it has boosted economic development in irrigated regions. In this study, an assessment of the groundwater (GW) quality for agricultural land was carried out in El Kharga Oasis, Western Desert of Egypt. Several irrigation water quality indices (IWQIs) a...

Non-climatic reasons, such as station replacement and changing the measurement device and calculation method, may make climate data unrepresentative of the actual variation of the regional climate. Data quality control and homogenization tests for climate data are critical. Thus, this study aims to evaluate the quality and homogeneity level of prec...

Global warming is by far the most significant issue caused by climate change. Over the past few decades, heat stress has intensified into a serious issue that has a negative impact on crop production. Hence, it is crucial to modify cultivation systems to cope with this kind of stress, particularly in arid dry regions. In comparison to open-field cu...

Ozone is an important air pollutant that causes many challenges for human health, such as lung diseases. The negative impacts of exogenous ozone on cultivated plants have been discussed in several publications, but the positive impacts are less investigated. The current study is an attempt to answer the following question: is there any positive con...

Urban areas are mostly heterogeneous due to settlements and vegetation including forests, water bodies and many other land use and land cover (LULC) classes. Due to the overwhelming population pressure, urbanization, industrial works and transportation systems, urban areas have been suffering from a deficiency of green spaces, which leads to an inc...

The entire service sector has acknowledged the importance of employee creativity. However, the underlying mechanism due to which employees are engaged in creativity has been relatively unexplored. Moreover, where the banking service sector in advanced countries has realized the potential role of employee creativity for a bank's success, the same wa...

Temperature and coagulant types have an important impact on the quantity and quality of the residue (sludge) in water and wastewater treatment processes. Temperature influences water viscosity and the distribution of the coagulant in water. Coagulants can promote the agglomeration of fine particles into larger flocs so that they can be more easily...

The impact of different climate scenarios, drought, and water level management on the outflow water quality of peatlands has been investigated. A mesocosm experiment has been conducted within climate control chambers to simulate current (2016–2019 real-time) and future representative concentration pathway (RCP) climate scenarios (RCP 2.6, 4.5 and 8...

Extreme climatic conditions and natural hazard-related phenomenon have been affecting coastal regions and riverine areas. Floods, cyclones, and climate change phenomena have hammered the natural environment and increased the land dynamic, socio-economic vulnerability, and food scarcity. Saltwater intrusion has also triggered cropland vulnerability...

The impact of different climate scenarios, drought, and water level management on the outflow water quality of peatlands has been investigated. A mesocosm experiment has been conducted within climate control chambers to simulate current (2016–2019 real-time) and future representative concentration pathway (RCP) climate scenarios (RCP 2.6, 4.5 and 8...

This study aimed to analyze stressors to which medical staff is vulnerable due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. It also imposes a hierarchy on complex relations among stressors for excavating underlying structure and builds a model of interrelationships contrasting reality. The design of this study comprises a literature survey,...

Hydropower is one of the significant renewable energy resources. It is regularly requested at peak time steps to meet the load requirements of power systems resources allocation. Therefore, modeling the optimal operation of hydropower systems to maximize the entire energy production of reservoir systems can be a vital task for energy investment. De...

The study is aimed to analyze the determinants of the effectiveness of SOPs in mass gatherings for containing COVID-19. The overall design of the study involves a literature review, data collection by field survey, structural modeling, and analysis. The study is built on the experts' opinion of a focus group (representing people who recently partic...

Accumulation of trace elements, including heavy metals, were evaluated in soil and fruits of chilli plants (Capsicum annuum L.) grown under both laboratory-controlled and semi-controlled greenhouse location conditions. Chilli plant biomass growth in different development stages and fruit productivity were evaluated and compared with each other for...

Climate change and drought episode impact integrated with anthropogenic pressure have become an increasing concern for water resource managers, particularly in arid and semi-arid climatic zones. This chapter presents a comprehensive methodology to predict the prospective impact of such changes at a basin scale. The Lower Zab River Basin, northern I...

Remediation of contaminated soil and sediment is important for improving the eco-environmental quality. Electro-kinetic remediation (EKR) is an environmentally friendly technology to migrate and remove pollutants from the soil and sediment matrix. This paper analyses the mechanism and performance of EKR of heavy metals, organic pollutants, and comp...

Water purification is one of the most essential services provided by wetlands. A lot of concerns regarding wetlands subjected to climate change relate to their susceptibility to hydrological change and the increase in temperature as a result of global warming. A warmer condition may accelerate the rate of decomposition and release of nutrients, whi...

Stress factors such as climate change and drought may switch the role of temperate peatlands from carbon dioxide (CO2) sinks to sources, leading to positive feedback to global climate change. Water level management has been regarded as an important climate change mitigation strategy as it can sustain the natural net CO2 sink function of a peatland....

There is great potential to apply energy recovery from municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) to achieve better energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions abatement. However, in most of the wastewater treatment plants that produce biogas through sludge digestion, there is no thermal energy recovery or electricity generation, and the bioga...

The literature on sustainable tourism is scant, particularly in the least developed countries. Very few studies touch upon the concept and no holistic theoretical or conceptual frameworks around the idea of sustainable tourism have been formulated. This study aims at exploring the role of tour operators in developing sustainable tourism in Pakistan...

Climate change is identified as a major threat to wetlands. Altered hydrology and rising temperature can change the biogeochemistry and function of a wetland to the degree that some important services might be turned into disservices. This means that they will, for example, no longer provide a water purification service and adversely they may start...

Currently, it is important to develop strategic frameworks to support the selection of sustainable resource recovery solutions. This study applies a new framework for planning, implementation, and assessment of resource recovery strategies for a full-scale wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) in São Paulo megacity. The framework comprises several step...

Free access to the full article: https://authors.elsevier.com/c/1bB-w3Ao5vL3D Abstract: In developing countries, there is often a lack of a comprehensive data set that supports the development of coherent policies on resource recovery from wastewater treatment. This paper aims to contribute to the elaboration of resource recovery projects by provi...

Storage of greywater is controversial for environmental and health reasons. Artificial greywater was assessed after 2 and 7 days of storage time. Two different greywater pollutant strengths were statistically compared at each storage time. A negative significant (p < 0.05) correlation was evident with increasing storage time for the 5-day biochemic...

Investigating the spatiotemporal distribution of climate data and their impact on the allocation of the regional aridity and meteorological drought, particularly in semi-arid and arid climate, it is critical to evaluate the climate variability effect and propose sufficient adaptation strategies. The coefficient of variation, precipitation concentra...

Wastewater treatment and subsequent effluent recycling for non-drinking purposes such as irrigation contributes to the mitigation of the pressure on freshwater resources. In this study, two vertical sub-surface flow constructed wetland (VSSF-CW) pilot plants were operated to treat municipal wastewater and their effluents were reused for irrigation...

The exploitation and management of groundwater in an integrated manner is gaining global interest. Rapid population growth is frequently linked to climate change.In order to meet the growing demand for public water supply and irrigation, especially in arid and semi-arid climate regions, groundwater is used excessively. This paper considers Erbil pr...

The experimental methodology achieved in the present study signified that the adsorption and precipitation were main mechanisms occurred together in the removal of nickel from aqueous solution by sorption using cement kiln dust (CKD) byproduct as sorbent. Finding the contribution of each mechanism in the removal process and derivation an analytical...

The aim of this article is to determine how human interventions in upstream countries coupled with drought events are affecting the flow regime of downstream countries using the Nile River basin for illustrative purposes. This has been addressed by assessing climate change in the study area through analyses of precipitation data obtained from the G...

Purpose: Buckets containing floating reed (Phragmites australis) simulated floating treatment wetlands (FTWs) and were used to improve the remediation performance of synthetic greywater (SGW). The aim of the study was to investigate the behaviour of FTWs for treatment of key contaminants within artificial greywater. Methods: Pelletized ochre bas...

Sustainable management of transboundary rivers, especially in water-scarce regions is increasingly becoming more challenging due to the collective adverse impact of upstream development and climate change on transboundary scale. Two major tributaries of the Tigris River, the Diyala (Sīrvān) and the Lesser Zab River basins, are shared between Iraq a...

Many industries, which are producing sludge in large quantities, depend on sludge dewatering technology to reduce the corresponding water content. A key design parameter for dewatering equipment is the capillary suction time (CST) test, which has, however, several scientific flaws, despite that the test is practical and easy-to-perform. The standar...

Textile industries are responsible for one of the major environmental pollution problems in the world, because they release undesirable dye effluents. Textile wastewater contains dyes mixed with various contaminants at a variety of ranges. Therefore, environmental legislation commonly obligates textile factories to treat these effluents before disc...

Background: In order to save potable water, this study aims to evaluate the contamination of soil and Capsicum annuum L. (chilli) watered with urban wastewater (sewage) pre-treated by various wetland systems. Methods: The appropriateness of wetland outflow for irrigation when applying reused wastewater with high contamination of minerals and pathog...

Due to water scarcity challenges around the world, it is essential to think about non-conventional water resources to address the increased demand in clean freshwater. Environmental and public health problems may result from insufficient provision of sanitation and wastewater disposal facilities. Because of this, wastewater treatment and recycling...

Climate change impact, drought phenomena and anthropogenic stress are of increasing apprehension for water resource managers and strategists, particularly in arid regions. The current study proposes a generic methodology to evaluate the potential impact of such changes at a basin scale. The Lower Zab River Basin located in the north of Iraq has bee...

Novel soil remediation equipment based on electro-kinetic geosynthetics (EKG) was developed for in situ isolation of metals from paddy soil. Two mutually independent field plot experiments A and B (with and without electric current applied) were conducted. After saturation using ferric chloride (FeCl3) and calcium chloride (CaCl2), soil water drain...

Increased population leads to land use (LU) changes from natural to urban and agricultural LU. These disturbances not only decrease the natural treatment potential but they also worsen surface water quality (SWQ). The aim of this review is to assess studies about impacts of anthropogenic LU changes on levels of nutrient concentrations in surface wa...

Multi-regression, hydrologic sensitivity and hydrologic model simulations were applied to quantify the climate change and anthropogenic intervention impacts on the Lower Zab River basin (LZRB). The Pettitt, precipitation-runoff double cumulative curve (PR-DCC) and Mann–Kendall methods were used for the change points and significant trend analyses i...

Most spatiotemporal studies treat spatial and temporal analysis separately. However, spatial and temporal changes occur simultaneously and are correlated. In this study, we propose a generic framework to simultaneously analyse the spatial and temporal variations of water quality on a catchment scale. Specifically, we analyse the heterogeneity of te...

In this paper, Erbil province in Iraqi Kurdistan has been chosen as a representative case study for a large number of provinces in semi-arid areas, lacking imbalance between water demands and supply. Climate change is expected to bring higher average temperatures and lower precipitation, which would intensify the pressure on water resources and inc...

Due to water scarcity, there is great interest in reusing various nutrient-rich wastewaters. The aim of this article is consequently to evaluate if domestic wastewater treated by various wetland systems can be successfully recycled to irrigate generations of commercial crops such as Chilli (Capsicum annuum) grown in compost within a laboratory envi...

Precipitated sludge (ochre) obtained from a mine water treatment plant was considered as an adsorbent substance for pollutants, since ochre is relatively free from problematic levels of toxic elements, which could impair on the quality of water to be treated. Artificially created ochre pellets from mixing Portland cement with raw ochre sludge were...

In this paper, Erbil province the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan has been chosen as a representative case study for a large number of provinces in semi-arid areas, lacking imbalance between water demands and supply. Climate change is expected to bring adverse impact on water availability, which would intensify the pressure on water resources and increa...

Two different chemical recipes comprising various pollutants were selected to create high (HC) and low (LC) levels of contaminated synthetic greywaters (SGW). Remediation in macrocosm–scale floating treatment wetlands (FTW) vegetated with Phragmites australis (Cav.) Trin. ex Steud. (common reed) was investigated under natural weather conditions. Th...

Several meteorological drought indicators with different complexity have been exploited in numerous climatic areas. Currently, a strong index, the reconnaissance drought index (RDI), is acquisitioning approval primarily in semi-arid and arid areas. As RDI is founded on precipitation (P) and evapotranspiration (ET), it is vital to evaluate the impac...

In this paper, Erbil province the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan has been chosen as a representative case study for a large number of provinces in semi-arid areas, lacking imbalance between water demands and supply. Climate change is expected to bring adverse impact on water availability, which would intensify the pressure on water resources and increa...

In order to avoid environmental pollution and eliminate the need for using fertiliser, this study assessed for the first time the optimum performance of mature (in operation since 2011) vertical flow constructed wetlands in treating domestic wastewater (with and without hydrocarbon) and the subsequent recycling of the outflow to irrigate chillies (...

Water-related impacts due to change in climatic conditions ranging from water scarcity to intense floods and storms are increasing in developing countries like Pakistan. Water quality and waterborne diseases like hepatitis, cholera, typhoid, malaria and dengue fever are increasing due to chaotic urbanization, industrialization, poor hygienic condit...

For the purpose of this paper, Erbil city, located in the northern part of Iraq, has been chosen as a representative case study for a large number of cities, particularly in semi-arid areas, lacking sustainable drainage systems (SuDS). The study assesses (a) the role of SuDS as a measure in areas with a water shortage; (b) water scarcity in decisio...