Research Profiles

Climate change is bringing about change in the overall weather pattern, temperature and precipitation across the globe. These changes will have varied impacts: for example, the change in temperature in the northern parts of Asian and North American continents might provide better living conditions than the currently prevailing extremely cold temperatures.
We currently have the tools available to analyse mass data and model our future climate. Therefore, it is proposed to train some high school students in climate change science to be the scientists of tomorrow and equip them with the appropriate knowledge and tools of global environmental variation and modelling

The project aims to test the vineyard development not in a traditional manner instead assessing the development of vineyards considering spatio-temporal impacts. The proposed project is designed to assess the cultivation potential of grape varieties in Qatar and screen varieties for their suitability in terms of drought, salinity and heat tolerance in the wake of global climate change. This will be achieved from studying the ecological aspects and relevance of whole value networks with the objective of evaluating and identifying more ecologically sustainable food and feed-value networks. The proposed project will apply methods for the evaluation of value networks using data gathered from real-world scenarios.

The study was designed to assess the conservation status of Qatar’s endemic flora by determining its floristic distribution and composition using modern GIS (Geographical Information System) and niche modelling techniques. Spatial and temporal mapping and analysis of the vegetation and classification analyses of land use changes were all assessed.
It is concluded that Qatar is undergoing a rapid change in regards to its land-use. Qatar has scarce but important flora which could be exploited for phytochemical extraction and commercialization. Some of these plants have specific niches which could be affected by climate change in the future and can have an impact on the overall biodiversity of Qatar.

Allelopathy is receiving attention as an environmentally friendly solution in controlling weeds or pests due to the phytotoxicity of certain chemical substances (predominantly polymers of phenols or fatty acids) that exist in soil-plant systems.
It is hypothesized that some commonly growing desert plants of Qatar have potential herbicidal properties.
The project has a great compatibility with the QNRF’s objectives, and will investigate and highlight the importance of natural resources in the wake of climate change and as a way forward to a sustainable future for the State of Qatar. The objectives of the project also coincide with the Qatar National Vision 2030, which believes in a society capable of sustainable development

In the last few decades, Qatar’s economy has witnessed a rapid economic growth with amazing infrastructures development coined to its petrochemical industry. However, this development had a cost of environmental degradation; “a major challenge” that poses severe threat to Qatar’s sustaining its rapid prosperity. To explore this potential, we propose to apply state-of-art cutting-edge dendrochronological techniques to develop long chronologies of various shrubs and tree species along the urban-rural gradient to reconstruct the pollution record in Qatar. The methods used in this study can be more widely applied to nearby regions in Qatar and other middle-east countries.