Muhammad Khalifa

International Water Management Institute (IWMI) · Water Data Science for Action (WDSA)

The scientific discourse on climate change throughout the US has primarily revolved around changes in mean climate and/or climate extremes. However, little is known about the impacts of climate change on mild weather conditions despite its significant relevance to quality of life. Here, we adopt the concept of “outdoor days” defined as those relati...

Here, we introduce the concept of “outdoor days” to describe how climate change can affect quality of life for different communities and individuals. An outdoor day is characterized by moderate temperature, neither too cold nor too hot, allowing most people to enjoy outdoor activities. The number of “outdoor days” is a non-linear function of the da...

Sub-Saharan Africa is facing an expected doubling of human population and tripling of food demand over the next quarter century, posing a range of severe environmental, political, and socio-economic challenges. In some cases, key Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are in direct conflict, raising difficult policy and funding decisions, particularl...

Some cereal crops can withstand harsh growing conditions, and, hence, can be considered an important line of defense against food shortage under climate change. Sorghum ( Sorghum bicolor (L.) Monech) is the main food crop for millions of people, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. This crop performs well under input constraints (e.g.,...

Drought is the most widespread event under climate change and is projected to lead to high uncertainties in quantifying the terrestrial carbon exchange. However, considering the complexity of drought quantification and the differences in the physiological responses to drought among different vegetation types, the potential mechanisms of vegetation...

Achieving water, energy, food and environmental securities become challenging due to interdependencies (synergies and trade-offs) of actions and outcomes by multiple actors. Hence, cooperative climate action and holistic thinking of resources and management of different sectors in an integrated way is crucial. Transboundary river basins represent i...

(For the interactive e-book, see: https://www.unep.org/resources/geo-6-youth) GEO-6 for Youth is a one-stop-shop for a young person to understand the state of the environment, what they can do every day to drive markets to adopt environmentally sustainable products and services and how to develop their skills and choose environmentally sustainabl...

Gold mining activities began around 1934 at the artisanal stage and became semi-mechanized around 2004 in eastern Cameroon, with the emergence of exploration and mining companies in the region. This paper aims at monitoring Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) changes between 1987 and 2017 among Bétaré-Oya, Ngoura and Batouri Districts which are witnessi...

Understanding the net primary productivity (NPP) of grassland is crucial to evaluate the terrestrial carbon cycle. In this study, we investigated the spatial distribution and the area of global grassland across the globe. Then, we used the Carnegie-Ames-Stanford Approach (CASA) model to estimate global grassland NPP and explore the spatio-temporal...

Grassland plays a key role in socioeconomic development and environmental protection in Africa. Climate variation and human activities are two main drivers of grassland dynamics. Quantitatively assessing the contributions of these two factors and understanding the driving mechanisms are important in ecosystem adaptation and management. In this rese...

Open Source: Data and tools for water resources management

This research aims at investigating a profound question for water and food security in many developing countries, especially in the arid and semi-arid regions. Seeking for an optimal agriculture development pathway that optimizes water resources and at the same time satisfying the current and future food demand, represents a challenging question fo...

This study investigates the implications of using different precipitation products in various applications (i.e. hydrological modelling, rainwater harvesting and drought characterization).

The measured ranges of 60 benthic foraminiferal species of Umm er Radhuma Formation (UeR) (Paleocene–Early Eocene age) in five wells of Rub’ Al-Khali Basin, Saudi Arabia, and two surface sections (Wadi Mashib and Say’un), from Yemen, have been assembled by a graphic correlation technique into a composite standard section (CSS). This composite stand...