KU research offers insights to creating a sustainable and economically robust business environment for policymakers.

The world’s perception of sustainability has been encapsulated as meeting today’s needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own. This ideal, encompassing the harmony of environmental, economic, and social balances, is the backbone of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) introduced by the United Nations in 2015. Yet, as this harmony is pursued, the looming threats of sustainability risks — which cover environmental degradation, social disparities, and economic vulnerabilities — pose significant challenges to current and future generations.

Moreover, the notion of country-level business risk, which is the probability of encountering obstacles when engaging in business within a specific nation, further adds layers to the complex quilt of challenges. As businesses today operate in an increasingly interconnected global ecosystem, understanding the interdependencies between SDGs and business risks is paramount for creating a sustainable future.

A team of researchers including Khalifa University’s Dr. Mecit Can Emre Simsekler, Associate Professor of Management Science and Engineering, has developed a model to explore dependences among SDG risks and business risks to help policymakers mitigate business risks while contributing to national sustainability goals. Dr. Simsekler collaborated with Abroon Qazi, American University of Sharjah, and M.K.S Al-Mhdawi, Teesside University, with their results published in the, a top 1% journal for sustainability and business.

Understanding country-level sustainability risks is crucial for minimizing operational disruptions and reputational damage while ensuring compliance with regulations and maintaining good investor relations.

While there have been studies around the relationship between aspects of sustainability and business risk, a comprehensive exploration of how all 17 SDG risks interplay with business risks in a networked environment is notably absent. Dr. Simsekler’s work aims to bridge this gap. By delving into the intricate web of relationships between each SDG risk and business risks, it provides a robust foundation for understanding the interdependencies and offers a roadmap for holistic decision-making.

For instance, while previous studies have underscored environmental performance as an indicator of business risk, this study’s findings illuminate the broader picture. The SDGs related to ‘quality education’, ‘no poverty’, and ‘affordable and clean energy’, representing social, economic, and environmental dimensions of sustainability respectively, are pivotal when understanding on the connection between SDGs and business risk.

This research also serves as a call for multi-stakeholder engagement. Addressing the intertwined challenges of SDGs requires a symphony of efforts from businesses, governments, civil society organizations and academia.

A key takeaway is the need to integrate sustainability considerations into traditional risk management processes. While the conventional risk frameworks have primarily revolved around financial risks, the evolving landscape necessitates a broader view, encapsulating sustainability risks.

While this study has shed light on the complex landscape of SDG risks and business risks, several avenues remain unexplored, such as the dynamic behavior of business and SDG risks, or the detailed strategies to mitigate these intertwined risks.

Dr. Simsekler says subsequent research could delve into the nuanced relationship between SDG risks and specific dimensions of business risk like financial or reputational risks. Such granular analysis can empower businesses with actionable insights tailored to their specific industry or operational scale. Moreover, understanding these associations across different scales – organizational to global – can offer a more holistic view of the intricate landscape of SDGs and business risks.

As the world strides towards a sustainable future, recognizing, understanding, and addressing the nexus between SDGs and business risks becomes paramount. This research serves as a beacon, guiding stakeholders through the complex maze of interdependencies and offering a blueprint for a balanced and harmonious future.

Jade Sterling 
Science Writer
9 November 2023

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A Khalifa University team has found warming global temperatures may be making springtime rainfall last longer in the UAE, and possibly become more common. 

A team from the Khalifa University Environmental and Geophysical Sciences Lab (ENGEOS) investigated spring season rain in the UAE, finding a positive trend over the past 20 years. Meaning, more rain is occurring during the spring now than in previous decades.

To better predict and model these rainy days, the team characterized the atmospheric conditions that favor their occurrence and explained that springtime rain will be more likely in the future as the global climate continues to warm and the global water cycle accelerates.

Additionally, globally averaged rainfall has increased since 1950, with human influence likely contributing to this.

A warmer atmosphere can hold more water, noted Dr. Francis, the senior author on the study, meaning rainfall can last longer. While this can be beneficial to a region known for its lack of rain, it can also be detrimental, since much of the city infrastructure is not designed to handle large amounts of rainfall.

Dr. Narendra Nelli, Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Diana Francis, Senior Research Scientist and Head of the ENGEOS Lab, Dr. Ricardo Fonseca, Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Rachid Abida, Research Scientist, Michael Weston, Research Engineer, Dr. Youssef Wehbe, Graduate Research and Teaching Assistant, and Taha Al Hosary from the UAE National Center of Meteorology, analyzed 95 springtime rain events that affected the UAE between 2000 and 2020. They published their findings in.

These systems are known as mesoscale convective systems (MCS). An MCS is a cluster of storms that moves as a single system. For one to develop in a hyper arid environment like the UAE, a combination of factors ranging from local to regional scale is needed, including a steep temperature gradient on the ground between the land and the surrounding seas. If cold air from the sea meets hot air from the desert, there is potential for an MCS to form.

“In arid regions, MCSs account for most of the annual rainfall and are associated with heavy rain that can cause flooding, landslides, and associated disruption to daily life,” Dr. Nelli said. “Past extreme weather events over the Arabian Peninsula have had devastating impacts on the local population so understanding how they start and develop is crucial for better simulation and prediction of future events and impact.”

despite their large contribution to the total amount of rain per year. What’s more, Dr. Nelli said, they may occur more frequently under a warmer climate.

The study found that MCSs occurring in spring over the UAE are large-scale features of the global water cycle which drifts over the UAE, contrary to summertime MCSs which develops locally over the UAE.

The study highlighted that the duration of these springtime MCS is becoming longer and the resulting amount of rain larger.

A better understanding of what causes MCSs in a region known for its aridity is an important step toward accurately predicting them and benefit from their associated rainfall, especially as they are expected to become more frequent as the global climate changes, Dr. Nelli said. 

Jade Sterling
Science Writer
28 September 2021

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Researchers from KU aim to characterize the weather features over the Arabian Peninsula and establish knowledge on their seasonal and annual variability.

Khalifa University researchers are gaining a deeper scientific understanding of the processes that affect the climate in the Arabian Peninsula. And with this new insight, they will be better equipped to simulate and project future changes in the region’s climate.

Dr. Ricardo Fonseca, Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr. Diana Francis, Senior Research Scientist and Head of the KU Environmental and Geophysical Sciences (ENGEOS) Laboratory, and Dr. Narendra Nelli, Postdoctoral Fellow, with Dr. Mohan Thota from the Indian National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting, investigated two of the weather systems that are responsible for determining the climate of the Arabian Region: The Arabian Heat Low (AHL) and the Intertropical Discontinuity (ITD). The researchers published their findings in the.

The AHL is an area of warm air close to the ground that develops inland as a result of strong surface heating by the sun, while the ITD is the boundary between the hot and dry winds from the desert and the cooler, moist winds from the Arabian Sea. Together, these systems play an important role in triggering summertime  moist convection in one of the driest places on Earth.

“Thermal heat lows and convergence zones between moist and dry air masses are ubiquitous features of tropical and subtropical regions,” explained Dr. Francis. “They impact the meteorological features in these regions, and cause the regions’ dust storms, convection, and rainfall.”

“Like other desert regions, the Arabian Peninsula sees a thermal heat low develop during the summer season, and with this, the movement of the intertropical front from the Arabian Sea to the inland areas.”  

The ITD is a well-known convergence line, marking the leading edge of the monsoon flow. It separates the moist monsoon layer to the south from the dry boundary layer to the north. The convergence along this front plays a key role in favoring the development of moist air over the UAE during summer.

“Several studies have been conducted over Africa on the variability and dynamic role of the ITD,” said Dr. Francis. “But despite being key elements of the regional climate and weather patterns, the characteristics of the AHL and the ITD over the Arabian Peninsula have not been established yet. This is what we aimed to do: investigate the variability of the AHL and ITD over different periods of time.”

With more data on how these weather systems interact in the region, scientists will be able to develop more accurate climate models, enabling them to better predict future changes in the region’s climate systems, which is critical information in light of a rapidly changing climate due to human-induced climate change.

The AHL is a deep thermal low that develops in response to strong surface heating, mostly occurring as a summertime feature. The researchers found, however, that the AHL coincides directly with the active and break periods of the Indian Summer Monsoon: increased levels of rain over the Arabian Sea and the Indian subcontinent cause greater warming over the Arabian Peninsula.

Like the heat lows studied over the Sahara Desert, the Arabian Heat Low presents a cycle as it moves across the desert. The AHL moves northwest towards the core of the Arabian desert over the course of five to 15 days, where it intensifies, before moving southeast and weakening near the Arabian Sea.

“We also noticed that the build up and subsequent decline over the summer months is rapid and sudden at both ends of the season,” said Dr. Francis. “Besides the annual march of the sun, this may arise from the fact that the majority of the rainfall in the region occurs in winter and early spring. Once the soil and the atmosphere are bone dry, the heat low can develop very quickly, and collapse just as quickly once the rains return.”

Linked to the seasonal variability of the AHL is the ITD, as the stronger the heat low becomes, the further the ITD is pushed northwards.

The ITD is located along the Arabian Peninsula coastline during the winter, but migrates northwards as the summer months approach. In the warm season, its position can fluctuate by as much as 10 degrees, reaching the Arabian Gulf and southern Iranian coastline at night. These daily fluctuations are roughly five to ten times larger than those seen over Africa, with the researchers determining that this is due to the location of the AHL, which is closer to the nearby seas than its equivalent over Africa.

The researchers also noticed the link between the daily cycle of the ITD and the daytime expansion of the AHL. As the AHL intensified, increased moisture would move inland and the ITD would move northwards. As the cooler moist air moves with the ITD, the heat low weakens, and the ITD shifts southwards again.

The researchers also considered the variability of the AHL over a period of 41 years. They found that the AHL exhibits a clear positive trend linked to the increase in surface and air temperatures in the region over the last few decades associated with global warming. Interestingly, they found that while the surface temperatures have been increasing throughout the region, the increase in temperature is more pronounced in the heat low region, and roughly 35 percent lower in the areas outside the AHL region.

“Both features play a crucial role in weather conditions in the Arabian Peninsula by modulating the atmospheric circulation at different altitudes,” explained Dr. Francis.

“The ITD helps in triggering dust storms and rainfall as convergence between the systems promote cloud development while also increasing turbulence near the ground, which helps lift dust into the air. Investigating how processes such as dust storms are modulated by the AHL and ITD is an area we’d like to research in the future.”

Jade Sterling
Science Writer
24 August 2021

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By Dr. Ludovic �ٳܳ�é��

Dr. Ludovic �ٳܳ�é�� , Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at Khalifa University, outlines the strategies and technologies that could be deployed to turn CO2 emissions into a resilient circular economy.

Read Arabic story .

The continuous emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere is the leading cause of climate change and subsequent extreme weather events.

In 2015, the international community adopted the Paris Climate Agreement, agreeing to limit the global average rise in temperature to less than 2° C, compared to pre-industrial levels, but with ambitions to limit the rise to less than 1.5° C. Along with a paradigm shift from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources, deployment of carbon capture and storage technologies was proposed as a core strategy to actively and significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This is in addition to the clear economic benefit that could be derived from using CO2 as a feedstock material for chemical products in a resilient circular economy.

While research into CO2 capture technologies is gaining traction, research into integrated capture and conversion strategies – which involves capturing CO2 at its source and effectively transforming the CO2 into value-added chemicals within the same chemical process – has received significantly less attention.

With my colleagues from Deakin University in Australia, including Dr. James Maina, Prof. Jennifer Pringle and Prof. Joselito Razal, and Dr. Suzana Nunes from King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia, Dr. Fausto Gallucci from Eindhoven University of Technology in Netherlands, and Dr. Lourdes Vega, Director of Khalifa University’s Research and Innovation Center on CO2 and Hydrogen (RICH), we published a review paper in the journal to assess recent advances in the integrated capture and conversion of CO2 from industry gases and atmospheric air.

Carbon capture and storage technologies (CSS) have been demonstrated across a number of pilot operations globally and typically include capturing CO2 from emission sources such as power plants, followed by compression prior to transportation to long-term storage sites. Although CSS technologies are viable for the capture of CO2 from large sources at high concentration levels, such as fossil fuel power plants or cement factories, they are not practical for small and distributed sources, such as transportation and residential heating, which cumulatively account for around half of all CO2 emissions.

For these cases, technologies that can extract CO2 directly from the atmosphere are needed if the associated carbon emissions are to be mitigated. These are direct air capture technologies (DAC) and they have some distinct advantages over traditional carbon capture technologies, including not needing to be located close to emission sources, which makes them deployable to any location around the world. However, since there is a much lower concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere compared to that available in the by-product gas from industrial plants, DAC is much more costly and energy intensive.

Associated with carbon capture and storage is carbon capture and utilization (CCU) where the CO2 captured from various sources is put back to work as a raw material. While CCU is most often associated with Enhanced Oil Recovery, CO2 can also produce valuable chemicals and fuels, which may be marketed to generate revenue and offset the expenses associated with the capture process. With a suitable catalyst, CO2 can be converted into a wide variety of products, including acids, monomers and carbon nanomaterials.

The potential for developing profitable businesses from products generated from CO2 is evidenced by the large number of recent start-up companies. The annual methanol market, for example, is expected to reach US$91.5 billion by 2026 and since methanol can be made from hydrogen and CO2, this represents a significant opportunity.

However, to further minimize energy requirements and eliminate the risk of secondary CO2 emissions, new, sustainable and energy efficient materials and processes that capture and convert CO2 emissions from the air directly need to be developed.

In our paper, we recommend that conversion reactions be carried out using renewable energy and that any chemicals and catalyst materials be produced using sustainable methods. Otherwise, CO2 derived products won’t have a low carbon footprint compared to fossil-fuel derived products. To highlight this, the generation of methanol from a reaction between CO2 and hydrogen generated by reforming of natural gas was found to release three times more CO2 than the conventional industrial production technique. But when the same reaction was carried out with hydrogen generated from wind power, there was a 58 percent reduction in emissions.

There is great potential in the scale-up and commercialization of capture and conversion technologies, but there are also key technological challenges hindering the advancement of this field that research can help overcome. Research and development carried out in the RICH Center at Khalifa University is tackling some of these challenges from a different angle. 

Dr. Ludovic �ٳܳ�é�� is an Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering at Khalifa University and a faculty member of the Research and Innovation Center on CO2 and Hydrogen (RICH). 

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