Yusuf Aina

Yanbu Industrial College · Geomatics Engineering Technology

Addressing the global urgency for improved sustainable cities and communities, as per the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11, requires innovative and disruptive approaches, which also include applying artificial intelligence (AI). While AI holds significant potential to address complex socioeconomic and environmental challenges in...

Climate change (CC) will likely significantly impact the world’s infrastructure significantly. Rising temperatures, increased precipitation, and rising sea levels are all likely to stress critical infrastructures (CI). Rising temperatures can lead to infrastructure damage from extreme heat events. This can cause roads and bridges to buckle or crack...

The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 underscores the imperative of creating inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable cities and communities by 2030. Here we employ bibliometric techniques to assess the evolving landscape of SDG11 research. Using a comprehensive dataset of over 21,000 scholarly publications, we investigate publication trends,...

Doha, the capital of Qatar, is the country’s administrative, economic, and political hub. With most of Qatar’s population residing in the metropolitan area, Doha effectively functions as a city-state. While the rapid growth of this Gulf metropolis is often celebrated as an emerging center of economic and cultural activity, the subtle yet crucial so...

Climate change poses a significant threat to the security and sustainability of global food systems, particularly in vulnerable regions such as Bangladesh. This paper comprehensively reviews the impact of climate change on food system security and sustainability in Bangladesh. Specifically, it examines the country's food system, the climatic condit...

Climate change affects human activities, including tourism across various sectors and time frames. The winter tourism industry, dependent on low temperatures, faces significant impacts. This paper reviews the implications of climate change on winter tourism, emphasising challenges for activities like skiing and snowboarding, which rely on consisten...

Partnerships have become a key tool in the implementation of the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Partnerships can scale up the impact of initiatives by leveraging the strengths and reach of each involved partner. This allows for the replication and expansion of successful projects and programs. In the context of the UN SDG...

The pivotal role of education in shaping sustainable futures becomes increasingly apparent as the global community grapples with the multifaceted challenges posed by climate change. This article delves into the transformative power of education in addressing the complexities of climate change, unraveling its scientific intricacies. The narrative un...

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted human socioeconomic activities, leaving an everlasting impact on urban systems. As a result, there is a growing scholarly focus on exploring how urban planning strategies and tools can help create resilient cities. In Saudi Arabia, the pilgrimage city of Makkah, which has always faced the challenge...

Higher education (HE) matters to the global struggle to combat climate change. Research builds knowledge and informs climate solutions. Educational programmes and courses upskill current and future leaders and professionals to tackle the systems change and the transformation needed to improve society. Through their outreach and civic engagement wor...

This book in two Volumes and with a FOREWORD by the renowned Professor M.A.J. Williams draws on evidence from coastal and inland regions, including desert dunes, wind-blown dust, river and lake sediments, glacial moraines, plant and animal fossils, isotope geochemistry, soils and prehistoric archaeology to better understand the genesis and developm...

Urban computing is the incorporation of computing, sensors, and actuation technology into urban life. In Saudi Arabia, the neighborhoods lack an integrated approach to social, economic, and environmental values, thereby creating consequences, such as inefficient mobility, poor environmental protection, low quality of life, and inadequate services o...

Smart city development is gaining widespread acceptance as a means of mitigating urban development problems. However, the implementation of smart cities faces challenges, especially in developing countries. Urban computing is regarded as an enabler of innovation and smart city development. This study explores the adoption of urban computing to addr...

Social sustainability is a work field characterised by an emphasis on social aspects, e.g. equity, ethics, health, gender balance, or empowerment, within a broader sustainability context. Although the concept seems to be reasonably well established and deemed worthy of pursuing, some obstacles prevent its wide dissemination. Through a bibliometric...

Climate change has been and is still affecting every region in Europe, with varying impacts across the continent. While some cities are generally resilient to CC impacts, other cities are not necessarily as fortunate. Promoting policies that build resilience enhances cities' capabilities to cope with acute shocks and chronic stresses, adapt well to...

Global Land Cover (GLC) maps have been extensively used as background data for numerous applications such as land-use planning, climate change monitoring, and urban planning. While countries in Europe and North America have greatly developed land cover maps, several developing countries in Asia and Africa lack such vital data sources. GlobeLand30’s...

The rate of urbanization is unprecedented. Over half of the global population is already residing in urban areas. Future growth is expected to occur in Africa and Asia. Therefore, African and Asian cities are gaining attention on how to monitor and accommodate the impending growth in a sustainable way. Different models have been developed for bench...

Climate change threatens the security and sustainability of the global food system. In Bangladesh, the fragile food system is strongly being impacted by climate variability and extreme weather events. Estimates indicate that the agricultural sector could lose about USD7.7 billion per annum due to climate change. The average annual rice production c...

This study develops an Adaboost-GIS model for flood susceptibility mapping and evaluates its relative performance by undertaking a comparative assessment of the machine learning model with Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) and soft computing models integrated with GIS. An Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), Analytic Network Process (ANP), Fuzzy-A...

With the COVID-19 lockdown impacting the livelihood of people globally, changes in household behaviors, water consumption patterns, etc., have implications on sanitation, hygiene, and disease control. An online questionnaire survey was conducted, and officials were interviewed to assess the impact of the lockdown on water consumption patterns in th...

The development of electro-mobility is one of the centerpieces of European country attempts to reduce carbon emissions and increase the quality of life in cities. The goals of reducing emissions from the transport sector and phasing out fossil-fueled vehicles in (urban) transport by 2050 present unrivaled opportunities to foster electro-mobility. T...

Solar-based power generation is gaining attention worldwide as it is environment-friendly, and highly sustainable. Saudi Arabia is bestowed with vast solar energy availability. This should be the driving force for generating solar electricity to the optimal. However, the installation of solar photovoltaic (PV) is not as widespread as expected. As p...

In this study, we developed multiple hybrid machine-learning models to address parameter optimization limitations and enhance the spatial prediction of landslide susceptibility models. We created a geographic information system database, and our analysis results were used to prepare a landslide inventory map containing 359 landslide events identifi...

This study investigated the possibility of using an intelligent transport system (ITS) and geographic information system (GIS) to increase the efficiency of the campus transportation at King Saud University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The study yielded several findings, prior to the implementation of the GIS-based ITS, the time spent waiting for the u...

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered catastrophic impacts on human life, but at the same time demonstrated positive impacts on air quality. In this study, the impact of COVID-19 lockdown interventions on five major air pollutants during the pre-lockdown, lockdown, and post-lockdown periods is analysed in three urban areas in Northern England: Leeds, She...

This article explores using satellite images to monitor spatiotemporal variations in temperature related to urban form. Land surface temperatures (LST) were estimated from Landsat images (1986–2016) and the land cover and urban form LST were extracted by using samples representing different urban forms/cover types. A transect of 20 km was taken acr...

Increased knowledge of heat island surfaces (HIS) and intense heat island surfaces (IHIS) in urban environments is critical for the mitigation of excess urban heat and the associated burden on power grids. In this study, we propose a robust thermal remote sensing solution for the delin-eation of HIS and IHIS areas in Abha and Khamis, a tourist reso...

Mitigating climate change via initiatives such as reducing emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) and renewable energy (RE) generation helps in reducing environmental pollution, increasing efficiency, and saving costs in the energy industry. Bangladesh recently formulated some policies and initiatives for reducing GHG emissions that have been increasi...

The urban heat island phenomenon is an important factor to be considered in fostering sustainability in urban areas. It has been acknowledged that the phenomenon has relationships with energy consumption, human thermal comfort and general well-being. This chapter examines the effects of urban heat island and the adaptation and mitigation strategies...

For the past three decades, sustainable development (SD) at higher education institutions (HEIs) has been receiving increasing global attention based on the recognition of their vital roles in fostering sustainability teaching and practices on their campuses and influencing the larger society to embrace sustainable behaviors. As one of its key dime...

Lagos, the economic and industrial hub of Nigeria, is the second largest metropolitan area in Africa, and one of the fastest growing megacities in the world. It is indeed a paradoxical metropolis. On one hand, its strategic coastal location, economic potentials, and burgeoning population provide livelihood opportunities to its teeming residents. On...

Climate change mitigation in rapidly growing developing countries is receiving increased global attention, especially after the 2016 Paris Agreement. In Bangladesh, the government has initiated some climate change policies to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions in the last decade. However, the rate of emissions has been increasing recently, which q...

This paper examines the application of remote sensing, based on the Vegetation-Impervious surface-Soil (V-I-S) model and spatial metrics, in an urban analysis for promoting sustainability and understanding urban growth theory. In order to improve the accuracy of land-cover classification, spectral angle mapping (SAM), spectral mixture analysis (SMA...

In the abstract, the statement “The GHG emissions avoidance expected to be achieved by the GCC countries will vary between 5 and 247 million tons of CO equivalent by 2030.”

The recent transition from the millennium development goals (MDGs) to the sustainable development goals (SDGs) raises concerns about the extent to which developing countries such as Nigeria have achieved the MDGs and their prospects and challenges of meeting the targets of the SDGs. This paper examines Nigeria's prospects of achieving the SDG11 tha...

This paper focuses on transformation in sustainable urban governance by examining the prospect of fostering sustainable development through top-down urban governance. It takes a case study of urban development in Saudi Arabia, which had been administered through a centralized framework devoid of the environmental assessment of policies and plans. U...

There is a growing focus on the role of renewable energy (RE) policies such as feed-in tariffs (FITs), renewable portfolio standards (RPSs), subsidies, incentives, and research and development in the global energy policy mix and in promoting environmental sustainability. Although most developed countries have well-formulated RE policies, in develop...

Understanding factors associated with flood incidence could facilitate flood disaster control and management. This paper assesses flood susceptibility of Perlis, Malaysia for reducing and managing their impacts on people and the environment. The study used an integrated approach that combines geographic information system (GIS), analytic network pr...

Definition A sustainable higher institution is an institution “that apart from seeking academic excellence, tries to embed human values into the fabric of people’s lives” (Nejati and Nejati 2013, p. 105). Nejati and Nejati (2013, p. 105) further defined a sustainable higher institution as an institution “that promotes and implements sustainability...

Definition: A campus sustainability ranking system can be defined as a tool that evaluates the sustainability performance or expected performance of a higher education institution (HEI) and translates that evaluation into a general assessment that allows for comparison across similar institutions. It is referred to as global campus sustainability...

The urban heat island (UHI) phenomenon has gained increasing attention being an indicator of the anthropogenic activities’ effects on urban areas. Moreover, the establishment of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) for urban areas underscores the need to monitor the UHI phenomenon. This paper explores the influence of land use type and populati...

This chapter highlights the challenges of rapid urbanization in Saudi Arabia and the implications of its burgeoning urban population on urban sustainability. The first section of the chapter reviews the trend of urbanization in the Third World, and Saudi Arabia in particular, and the factors responsible for rapid urban growth. The second section cr...

In order to promote sustainability in higher education institutions, different sustainable campus awards have been established to foster best practices and encourage networking among universities. However, the impact and engagement with the awards have not been similar especially between developed and developing countries. This paper reviews the ma...

Urban heat island (UHI) effect is considered to be one of the key indicators of the impacts of urbanization and the climate changes on the environment. Thus, the growing interest in studying the impacts of urbanization on changes in land surface temperature (LST). The literature on LST indicates the need for more studies on the relationship between...

Geoinformation and Communication Technology (GeoICT) is being increasingly adopted to foster urban sustainability and smart cities. Despite the burgeoning utilization of GeoICT, the development of frameworks of components and guidelines is still at the infancy. This is due to the fact that GeoICT implementations are guided by contextual factors and...

The recent transition from millennium development goals (MDGs) to sustainable development goals (SDGs) raises issues about the extent to which developing countries have been able to achieve the MDGs and how prepared are they for the challenges of meeting the targets of the SDGs. Nigeria, with a population of 182 million people (about half living in...

Sustainability indicators and assessments are vital in promoting campus sustainability. Despite the plethora of indicator frameworks, campus sustainability assessment in developing countries encounters many challenges including lack of, or restricted access to, data and difficulties in measuring indicators. There is also a limited application of Ge...

The urban heat island (UHI) effect is a human-induced phenomenon that results in higher temperatures in urbanized areas as compared to their surroundings. Yanbu industrial city is one of the highly industrialized cities in Saudi Arabia with petrochemical, energy-intensive activities, and a growing population. So, it is imperative to study the effec...

This chapter highlights the challenges of rapid urbanization in Saudi Arabia and the implications of its burgeoning urban population on urban sustainability. The first section of the chapter reviews the trend of urbanization in the Third World, and Saudi Arabia in particular, and the factors responsible for rapid urban growth. The second section cr...

The study of the concentrations and effects of fine particulate matter in urban areas have been of great interest to researchers in recent times. This is due to the acknowledgment of the far-reaching impacts of fine particulate matter on public health. Remote sensing data have been used to monitor the trend of concentrations of particulate matter b...

This paper explores the use of satellite images in monitoring spatiotemporal variations in temperature due to urban form and vegetation. This study uses historical landsat images (1990s, 2000s and 2010s) to examine the impact of urban form, vegetation and industrial activities on microclimate. Land surface temperatures were extracted from the image...

Urban areas are expected to host about 70% of world’s population by 2050. Ensuring that the expected rapid urbanization occurs in a sustainable manner require better tools than the traditional planning ones. GeoICT is being increasingly adopted to foster urban sustainability and smart cities. Despite the burgeoning utilization of GeoICT, the develo...

The effects of concentrations of fine particulate matter on urban populations have been gaining attention because fine particulate matter exposes the urban populace to health risks such as respiratory and cardiovascular diseases. Satellite-derived data, using aerosol optical depth (AOD), have been adopted to improve the monitoring of fine particula...

Several factors have been militating against the progress of Geomatics education worldwide. They include, but are not limited to, the nature of adequate student training required in the face of the advent of new technologies such as GPS and GIS, inadequate financial support from governmental and intergovernmental bodies, and most importantly the la...

This study examines the different scenarios of sea level rise and its consequences on a coastal industrial city. Analyses of these scenarios were carried out using Digital Elevation Model (DEM) from Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) with high resolution remote sensing data (for visualization) within Geospatial Information System (GIS) environ...

Climate change and its associated sea level rise is one of the recent challenging global issues especially in coastal areas, where a large percentage of the world population resides. Sea- level rise (SLR) is expected to increase coastal inundation and erosion. This may disrupt the physical and human processes including economic systems and social s...

Disasters have become an issue of growing concern throughout the world, whether it is natural hazards or through human factors. The frequency, as well as magnitude, of disasters threatening large population living in diverse environments is increasing in recent years across the world. These disasters also have far-reaching implications on sustainab...

The desert environment is one of the most challenging environments for human habitation. Inhabitants have to deal with climatic factors such as high temperature, sandstorms, flash floods and lack of water due to low rainfall. The people of Saudi Arabian desert had developed various traditional adaptation approaches such as living in tents, wearing...

European Geostationary Navigation Overlay Service (EGNOS) is a Satellite Based Augmentation System (SBAS) being developed by European Space Agency (ESA) to make GPS and GLONASS suitable for civil aviation and other applications. It improves the accuracy of the GPS and GLONASS signals to about 1 to 2 meters. Though corrected signals from EGNOS are r...

Geospatial technology has been identified as one of the three most important emerging fields along with nanotechnology and biotechnology. The application of the technology is expected to grow and become more diversified in the coming years. In Saudi Arabia, the utilization of geotechnology is growing but still limited compared to the Western world....

The first remarkable environmental initiatives in Bangladesh were taken because of the Stockholm Conference on Human Environment in 1972. The provision that requires Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for any new public and private project was first incorporated in the National Environmental Policy, 1992. Still environmental degradation is one o...

The spate of rapid urban growth and its attendant environmental impacts have been the focus of urban planners and researchers in recent times. The key challenge is to reach a proper balance between urban development and environmental protection. Urban growth management has gained importance as a means of ensuring desirable urban development. Along...

This paper introduces and critically reviews the Saudi education and unemployment situation. It sets out the specialized nature of issues regarding education and unemployment which are seldom found in other countries. The governmental efforts and subsequent results in the employment sectors are investigated to illustrate the reasons behind prevaili...

This paper applies an integrated approach to assessing urban sustainability in Dammam City, Saudi Arabia. The approach, based on geographic information systems (GIS), involves the evaluation of the planning process, the master plan and the land use activities resulting from planning. It concludes that some aspects of sustainability are not addresse...

Accessibility as a relative nearness of one place to another indicates easiness of reaching destination from origin. As a spatial analytic measure, it plays a vital role for decision makers in deciding where to locate public facilities or amenities so as to maximise their usability. More accessible public facilities like parks and open spaces impro...

The Saudi government has made some efforts in incorporating the principles of sustainable development into the planning process by establishing a framework for considering environmental consequences of development activities. The framework is guided by the General Environmental Code. The Ministerial Committee on the Environment (MCE) coordinates th...

Saudi Arabia has recently begun to implement its General Environmental Regulations. The main purpose is to ensure that environmental considerations are taken into account at all levels of planning with an emphasis on incorporating EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) into development activities. However, there is a need to develop a broad framewor...