Recent Research on Environmental Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Soil Science and Paleoenvironments | Proceedings of the 2nd MedGU, Marrakesh 2022 (Volume 4)

This book is based on the accepted papers for presentation at the 2nd MedGU Annual Meeting, Marrakesh 2022. The book presents a series of newest research studies that are nowadays relevant to Middle East, Mediterranean region, Africa, and surrounding areas. The book gives a general overview on current research, focusing on geoenvironmental issues and challenges in environmental management in these regions. It offers a broad range of recent studies that discuss the latest advances in geography, geomorphology, landslides, and soil science, in addition to geoarchaeology and geoheritage. It also shares insights on some glaciology studies. The book also enhances the understanding of paleoclimate and paleoenvironmental changes based on research studies from the fields of marine geosciences, historical geology, and paleoceanography and paleoclimatology.

Attila Ciner
Istanbul Technical University, Turkey

Attila Çiner is a sedimentology and quaternary geology professor at the Eurasia Institute of Earth Sciences at Istanbul Technical University, Turkey. After graduating from the Middle East Technical University in Ankara (1985), he obtained his M.Sc. degree at the University of Toledo, USA (1988), and his Ph.D. at the University of Strasbourg, France (1992). He works on the tectono-sedimentary evolution of basins and quaternary depositional systems such as moraines, fluvial terraces, alluvial fans, and deltas. He uses cosmogenic nuclides to date these deposits. He primarily focuses on the glacial deposits and landscapes and tries to understand palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental changes since the Last Glacial Maximum. Lastly, he was part of the Turkish Antarctic Expedition. He spent two months working on the site recognition and decision of the future Turkish scientific research station to be implemented on the continent.

Maurizio Barbieri
University of Rome La Sapienza, Italy

Maurizio Barbieri is a skilled geologist (B.Sc., Ph.D.) with over 27 years of experience and a full professor of Geochemistry at the Department of Chemical, Materials and Environmental Engineering (DICMA) of the Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. Presently, he is a fellow of the Association of Applied Geochemists and European Chair (Italy) of the Society for Environmental Geochemistry and Health. He has been on the editorial board of the Arabian Journal of Geosciences, Chemie der Erde, Environmental Geochemistry and Health, Euro-Mediterranean Journal for Environmental Integration, Water, Geofluids, and Discover Water. In addition, he is an editor-in-chief (Hydrogeology Section) for Geosciences MDPI.

Md Firoz Khan
North South University, Malaysia

Dr. Firoz Khan is an associate professor at the Department of Environmental Science and Management, North SouthUniversity in Dhaka.  He was a former senior lecturer in the Department of Chemistry, University of Malaya, Malaysia, and a professor (Visiting) at the China University of Mining and Technology, China. He received Ph.D. from the Yokohama National University, Japan, in 2010 as a Japanese Government scholar in Environmental Science and Risk Management. He received his M.Sc. in Air Pollution from the University of Birmingham, UK, in 2005. He leads an “Aerosol Lab” and focuses research on aerosol sciences, particularly aerosol source apportionment, aerosol-health interaction, and aerosol–meteorology interaction. He is an author or co-author of about 135 peer-reviewed research articles, books, and book chapters.

Veysel Turan
Bingol University, Turkey

Veysel Turan is currently an associate professor at the Faculty of Agriculture, Bingöl, Türkiye. His research focuses on the interactions among soil science, environmental remediation, food chemistry, and climate change.   His Google Scholar H index is 38, Web of Science ESI top papers (13 as “highly cited papers” and 4 as “hot paper”). He was awarded an Excellence in reviewing for the Journal of Environmental Management, Resources, Conservation and Recycling and Best Reviewer Award  Critical Reviews in Environmental Science and Technology in 2022.

Ilker Ugulu
Usak University, Usak, Turkey

Dr. Ilker Ugulu has completed his Ph.D. at Dokuz Eylul University on Recycling Education. He is presently the associate professor of Faculty of Education of Usak University. His research is situated in the fields of biology, ecology, and environmental education. His research interests also cover several aspects across environmental pollution, mainly heavy metal pollution and solid waste management. He has more than 100 academic articles in reputed journals, more than 70 of which are covered by SCI.

Jesús Rodrigo-Comino
University of Granada, Spain

Ph.D. DEng Jesús Rodrigo-Comino is a member of the Department of Regional and Physical Geography at the University of Granada (Spain). He completed his first Ph.D. in Geography at the University of Málaga (Spain) and Trier (Germany) in 2018 and the second one in the engineering of Geomatics and Topography at the Polytechnic University of Valencia (2023). His current research interests include soil geography, regional geography, and land degradation. He coordinates the Terra Lab 2 EGEMAP (Environmental Geography and Mapping) www.egemap.eu.

Haroun Chenchouni
Higher National School of Forests, Khenchela, Algeria

Dr. Haroun Chenchouni is an associate professor and research scientist (Ecologist) at the Higher National School of Forests (Khenchela, Algeria). He is a former associate professor at the University of Tebessa (Algeria). He holds a doctorate degree in Ecology and Environment from the University of Batna 2 (Algeria) and a M.Sc. (Magister) in Dryland Ecology from the University of Ouargla (Algeria). He graduated as an engineer in Plant Ecology and Forest Ecosystems from the Department of Biological Sciences (University of Batna, Algeria). His research interests are fairly broad; he uses statistical modeling approaches to understand how natural environments, mainly climatic and edaphic factors, and anthropogenic perturbations influence biological interactions, shape trends in population dynamics, and influence community diversity. He uses various biological models to investigate biological interactions and community ecology of arid and semiarid ecosystems of North Africa.

Amjad Kallel
Sfax National School of Engineering, University of Sfax, Sfax, Tunisia

Dr. Amjad Kallel is currently an associate professor of Environmental Geology in the Sfax National School of Engineers at the University of Sfax, Tunisia. He holds a B.Eng. in Georesources and Environment (1998) from the University of Sfax (Tunisia) and an M.Sc. degree and a Ph.D. degree in Georesources and Environment (2004) from Hokkaido University (Japan). He joined Venture Business Laboratory (VBL) at Akita University, Japan (2005–2006) as a researcher focusing on refining and recycling technologies for the recovery of rare elements from natural and secondary sources. On his return to Tunisia, he worked at the University of Gabes from 2006 to 2011,where he contributed to the elaboration of teaching programs at the Higher Institute of Water Sciences and Technologies of Gabes. Since 2011, he has joined the Sfax National School of Engineers.

Ahmed Radwan
Institute of geological sciences, Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland

Dr. Ahmed E. Radwan is an adjunct professor at the Institute of Geological Sciences of the Jagiellonian University (Poland). Dr. Radwan has academic and industrial experience, since he obtained his Ph.D. in geophysics at Sohag University, Egypt, besides his proficient work in the oil and gas industry as section head at the exploration department of the Gulf of Suez petroleum company (Gupco), Egypt. As a post-doctoral research scientist, he attended Innsbruck University in Austria in 2019. In 2020, he joined the Jagiellonian University in Poland. Despite his youth, he has received numerous awards from international organizations such as the International Union of GeologicalSciences (IUGS), the Geochemical Society (GS), the Clay Minerals Society (CMS), the Austrian Forschungsgemeinschaft (FG), the Narodowa Agencja Wymiany Akademickiej (NAWA), the Austrian Federal Ministry of Education, Science, and Research (BMBWF), and petroleum companies.

Dionysia Panagoulia
National Technical University of Athens, Greece

Dr. Dionysia G. Panagoulia is an associate professor at the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, with expertise in hydrology, hydroclimatology, and water systems. She is the author of more than 145 published research works, including being the co-editor of the book “River Basin Management - Under a Changing Climate” and lately has extended her research work to water economics theory and complex time/dark matter approaches. She has over 30 years of research experience in floods and their risk and hazard, extreme events, precipitation, global climate contribution to local climate, climate change, low flows, droughts, maximum/minimum temperatures, sediment transport, groundwater/streamflow interaction, ANN, WEF Nexus, and water economics and management. She has cooperated in joint research with the University of Stuttgart, Germany; CNRS Laboratory of Oceanology and Geosciences Wimereux, France; Wageningen University, Netherlands; and McGill University, Canada.

Arkoprovo Biswas
Banaras Hindu University, India

Dr. Arkoprovo Biswas is an assistant professor at the Department of Geology, Institute of Science, Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Varanasi. He received his B. Sc. (2002) in Geology from Presidency College, University of Calcutta, M. Sc. (2004) in Geological Science, M. Tech (2006) in Earth and Environmental Science from IIT Kharagpur, and P.G. Diploma (2009) in Petroleum Exploration from Annamalai University. He joined Geostar Surveys India Pvt. Ltd as a geophysicist in 2006 and later joined WesternGeco Electromagnetics, Schlumberger as an On-Board Data Processing Field engineer/geophysicist in 2007 and served there till 2008. In 2013, he received his Ph.D. in Exploration Geophysics from IIT Kharagpur. Later, he joined the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Bhopal as a visiting faculty in 2014 and completed his tenure in 2015.

Mourad Bezzeghoud
School of Sciences and Technology, University of Évora, Portugal

Mourad Bezzeghoud is a full professor at the Physics Department of the School of Sciences and Technology and researcher at the Institute of Space and Earth Sciences, University of Évora. He was in charge of several positions of responsibility in several institutions as, i.e., founder and director of the Department for Study and Seismic Monitoring of CRAAG (Algiers, Algeria), director of the School of Sciences and Technology (University of Évora, Portugal), or member of the Management Council of the University of Évora. Presently, he is the president of the Scientific Council of the School of Sciences and Technology (University of Évora) and coordinator of the Institute of Space and Earth Sciences (University of Évora).  He has published dozens of articles in specialized revues and journals and several books and chapters in books.

Zeynal Abiddin Ergüler
Kutahya Dumlupinar University, Geological Engineering Department, Kutahya, Turkey

Prof. Dr. Zeynal Abiddin Erguler is a full professor at the geological engineering department at Kutahya Dumlupinar University (Turkey). Dr. Erguler holds a B.Sc. (1998), an M.Sc. (2001), and a Ph.D. degree (2007) in Geological Engineering from Hacettepe University (Turkey). His research interests mainly focus on rock mechanics, engineering geology, environmental geology, and soil mechanics. His current investigation is to understand and model the thermo-hydro-mechanical behavior of shale rocks in the area of shale gas production. In addition to performing many types of research and industry-funded projects, he has also taught and supervised undergraduate and graduate students. In 2017, Dr. Erguler joined the Arabian Journal of Geosciences (AJGS) as an editor responsible for evaluating submissions in the fields of rock mechanics, engineering geology, environmental geology, and soil mechanics.