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Go to Editorial ManagerVisual pollution refers to the negative impact of various environmental elements on the visual experience of individuals and the quality of the surroundings. This includes unsightly buildings and other man-made structures that disrupt natural beauty. The design of building facades plays a significant role in determining visual pollution. This study aimed to assess the impact of facade design on visual pollution by testing which facade design considerations most contribute to visual pollution in Peshawa-Qazi Street (100 m) in Erbil City. An online survey was conducted with 283 participants in six architectural departments within engineering colleges and other online engineering platforms in Erbil, Duhok, and Suleimani. Respondents included architectural students from the 3rd to 5th stage, academic staff, and professional architects. They rated the impact of individual facade elements, contextual integration, and other factors on visual pollution. A one-sample T-test was used to compare mean scores to a test value of (2.5). Results showed that all three categories of façade design considerations significantly increase visual pollution compared to the test value (p < 0.05). Considerations regarding the overall context of a facade had the most significant impact (mean of 1.93 higher than the test value), followed by other factors (mean of 1.79 higher) and individual elements (mean of 0.71 higher). To decrease visual pollution, it is recommended to the policymakers and municipalities to develop regulations, façade design guidelines and for architects to follow the principles of architectural form and composition regarding the integration of building facades with their surroundings, façade practical considerations, and refined composition of façade elements.
Water pollution is the most important tasks facing all countries in the world to obtain suitable water for municipal, industrial, and agricultural uses. This study concerns with the effect of Bagdad city waste water on pollution and quality of Tigris River water using index of Aquifer water quality (IAWQ). The accuracy of chemical analyses of the selected water samples are conduced according to world standards of health classifications. Results of these analysis show that only two types of the 13th tested sample are ( certain ) ,while the other patterns ( models )are of the ( probable certain ). Cluster analysis is applied to evaluate the studied water characteristic. The results of the cluster analysis show the presence of three varying groups in their impact on their chemical properties on water .According to the cluster analysis and permissible limits of the variables, three chemical variables cadmium, lead, and calcium are selected to indicate its impact on the studied area. It is found that when using (IAWG) for the Tigris River, there is an increase in the values of the index along the river from its entry to Baghdad until it meets the Diyala river, showing a clear pollution of the Tigris river water.
Recently, methods have emerged to assess the vulnerability of groundwater to pollution, which has been adopted by many countries that depend on groundwater as an important and supportive resource for surface water to protect groundwater and monitor and control its pollution. Assessment methods adopt vulnerability maps and compare them with the real-life pollution map of the region. The study was conducted in Al-Teeb area, which is located in the northeast of Missan province, south of Iraq. This area is about 2450 km 2 . This study applied four models DRASTIC, GOD, SINTACS and Modified DRASTIC of vulnerability maps are analyzed using GIS technique and compared with the reality map which represent the nitrate concentration map as a basic comparison map; in order to choose the closest one with respect to the realistic acting. The results showed that 80.29 % of study area is classified under low vulnerability in DRASTIC method and moderate vulnerability in GOD, SINTACS and MD-DRASTIC which are covered 54.12 %, 83.18 % and 72.35 % of study area respectively. Pearson's correlation coefficient was used to compare the four methods with the nitrate concentration map, where the correlation value for DRASTIC, GOD, SINTACS and MD-DRASTIC was 73.05, 49.79, 83.23 and 87.94 %, respectively. So, the MD-DRASTIC is represented the best technique for evaluating vulnerability map in the study area which can be recommended.
Wars have imposed on some countries a state of haste and rush towards haphazard, unstudied urban planning to fill the shortage of architectural elements and urban formations. Urban sustainability, alongside environmental and economic sustainability, has recently gained great importance in contemporary global studies. Given the problems suffered by the city of Basra regarding architectural formation and devastating environmental pollution, in addition to the significant deficit in finding the required design solutions for the urban rehabilitation of the city, it was necessary to limit individual attempts that tend towards unconscious concepts leading to anomaly and lack of harmony with the city's distinct environment. Urban formation is a series of visual interferences that cannot be intercepted by individual, personal, and unstudied attempts; therefore, shared visions agreed upon by specialists in various fields, primarily the environment, must be formulated. Hence, the research tends towards finding research areas that can offer objective and realistic solutions to be the basis for the future structure of damaged cities within the framework of the concept of sustainable urban development in the future. Here, the research aims to select the best methods for shaping the modern city of Basra.
The effect of pore fluid chemistry on the engineering properties of soil in Garmatt-Ali zone of Basrah was investigated. The tested soil is described as silty clay of low plasticity. The pore fluid was altered to include distilled water, raw sewage, and solutions of various salts such calcium carbonate, magnesium sulphate, and calcium chloride. Also, the solutions of salts were used with different concentration (0.25, 0.5, 0.75, 1.0 normality). The prepared samples of soil were tested after different exposure periods. The test program included determination of shear strength characteristics, consolidation characteristics, and Atterberg limits. The changes in shear strength, coefficient of permeability, void ratio – effective stress relationship, and Atterberg limits were recorded with the change in exposure period or the concentration of pore fluid solution. Generally, it was found that there are reductions in the shear strength of soil when the pore fluid is changed from distilled water to solutions of salts or raw sewage. Also it was found that there is a change in the calculated values of permeability, upon changing the type of pore fluid. The coefficient of consolidation for polluted soil was found to be less than that for the reference samples with distilled water.
Solar desalination uses solar radiation to convert saline or seawater into clean water and is increasingly crucial due to growing pollution from industrial and automotive sources. Although solar stills offer a sustainable solution, they face challenges in terms of production efficiency. This study presents a new structural design for solar stills, which incorporates advanced insulation materials, a well-designed distillate channel, and an inclined base to enhance productivity. The research explores how different climatic conditions such as wind speed, solar radiation, and atmospheric humidity affect solar still performance. Seven experimental setups were evaluated, comparing traditional inclined stills with advanced closed-loop systems. The results demonstrated that closed-loop systems improved productivity by 28.6% compared to open-loop systems. Additionally, moderate wind speeds increased productivity by 20.82%, while partial cloud cover and light rain decreased productivity by 52.15% and 12.9%, respectively. However, light rain also enhanced condensation efficiency by cooling the glass surface. This study highlights the importance of incorporating environmental factors into the design and optimization of solar still systems for improved performance.
Basrah Refinery Plant produces recently gasoline with low octane number reached to 75.5, 69.0 for leaded and unleaded gasoline respectively. These fuel causes severe damage to engines and also causes bad fuel combustion which increases air pollution due to the high percentage of [CO] and [CO2] in the exhaust produced. In this research it is tried to improve the gasoline octane number by new chemical additives [aromatic hydrocarbons, aliphatic and aromatic amines] with different percentages in gasoline. This kinds of additives can also be used as antioxidants, antirust and anticorrosion which reduces the total amount of chemicals added to gasoline. The better results obtained with aromatic amines as chemical additives which caused increasing in octane number up to [95-5, 88..0] for leaded and unleaded gasoline respectively. The percentages of [CO] and [CO2] gases formed after combustion are measured by orsat analysis based on dry analyses.
The problem that still exists nowadays with the petrol station is the method of operation because the petrol station is currently operated manually. As it is a time-consuming process that increases manpower, other problems are related to accuracy, gasoline smuggling, fluctuations in global oil prices, sales, database management, environmental pollution and others. Traditional methods of monitoring fuel in petrol station by humans on site are unable to meet the expectations for efficiency, accuracy and cost. Therefore, this paper designs an intelligent system of three filling stations, where the three stations are simultaneously displayed on a single web application, and this IoT-based system is implemented to address all the problems. Therefore, this paper presents the design and implementation of three petrol stations in which we are going to measure the level of fuel and show it to central server. internet of things (IoT) based petrol station monitoring system is a good approach to improve monitoring efficiency and to improve management efficiency in stations remotely. simulation results presented in LabVIEW software showed the ability of the system to monitor levels of petrol, detect fire, evaporation and etc.
This study is to investigate the effect of partially replacement of coarse aggregate by waste plastic and using the paper sludge as additive material at concrete, on the hardened concrete properties and its impact on structural behavior of the reinforced concrete members (slab, column, and beam). Plastics and paper are widely used in daily life in huge amounts. Both incineration and landfilling are options for disposing of plastic and paper waste, but either one could be harmful to the environment. Therefore, reducing waste or increasing its value can reduce pollution and reduce disposal costs. The variables of the experimental program include the ratio of waste plastic and paper sludge, the used ratios for plastic and paper were (5%, 10%, and 15%) by volume. Hardened concrete properties were investigated for concrete include: flexural strength, modulus of elasticity, and splitting tensile strength. For each structural reinforced member, the (Load – Deflection) curve has been extracted. The study shows that the plastic waste negatively affects most of concrete properties. The research indicates that using waste plastic in reinforced concrete members with percentage of (5% and 10%) by volume as a partially replacement of coarse aggregate giving acceptable results. However, when adding (5%) by mixture volume of waste paper in reinforced concrete members, the load-deflection behavior and ultimate load-bearing capacity have been improved. In general, using waste plastic and paper sludge in concrete mixtures lead to reduction in ultimate load ranging between (4.62%-10.82%) for slab under point load, (4.85-18.99%) slab under distributed load, (3.72%-12.21%) column, and (1.78%-7.16%) beam specimens respectively.