Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

The concept of the waste biorefinery is known as one of the several energy recovery technologies capable of producing multi-products in the form of biofuels and value-added products treating different fractions of municipal solid waste (MSW). The conversion technologies such as anaerobic digestion (AD), pyrolysis, transesterification, incineration treat food, plastic, meat, and lignocellulosic wastes to produce liquid, gaseous and solid biofuels. Makkah city landfills receive about 2750 tons of waste every day. While during the Ramadan and Hajj seasons, these quantities become 3000 tons and 4706 tons per day respectively. More than 2.5 million animals were sold for slaughtering in 2014 Hajj, and their blood and organic solid waste were disposed of untreated. Similarly, around 2.1 million plastic Zam-Zam cups were wasted every day during the 2014 Ramadan time. In the first three days of 2014's Ramadan, 5000 tons of food was wasted only in Makkah municipality. Collectively, about 3853 tons of waste were generated each day during 2014 Hajj and Ramadan. The waste from Al-Haram and Al-Masha’ir (Mina, Muzdalifah and Arafat) and their surroundings was mainly composed of organics (up to 68.5%). There is no waste-to-energy facility existing in Saudi Arabia. The waste biorefinery in Makkah will divert up to 94% of MSW from landfill to biorefinery. The energy potential of 2171.47 TJ and 8852.66 TJ can be produced if all of the food and plastic waste of the Makkah city are processed through AD and pyrolysis respectively. The development of AD and pyrolysis under waste biorefinery will also benefit the economy with gross savings of 405 and 565.7 million SR respectively, totalling to an annual profit of 970.7 million SR. Therefore, the benefits of waste biorefinery in Makkah city and other parts of the Saudi Arabia are numerous including the development of renewable-energy science and research, solving solid waste problems, new businesses and job creation opportunities and minimizing environmental pollution.

This book looks at four dynamics in the Persian Gulf that have contributed to making the region one of the most volatile and tension-filled spots in the world. Mehran Kamrava identifies the four dynamics as: the neglect of human dimensions of security; the inherent instability involved in reliance on the United States and the exclusion of Iraq and Iran; the international and security policies pursued by inside and outside actors; and a suite of overlapping security dilemmas. These four factors combine and interact to generate long-term volatility and ongoing tensions within the Persian Gulf. Through insights from Kamrava’s interviews with Gulf elites into policy decisions, the consequences of security dilemmas, the priorities of local players, and the neglect of identity and religion, Troubled Waters examines the root causes of conflicts and crises that are currently unfolding in the region. As Kamrava demonstrates, each state in the region, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Qatar, has embarked on vigorous security-producing efforts as part of foreign policy, flooding the area with more munitions—thereby increasing insecurity and causing more mistrust in a part of the world that needs no more tension.

The present study utilizes the radial basis functions technique for the estimation of monthly mean daily values of solar radiation falling on horizontal surfaces and compares its performance with that of the multilayer perceptrons network and a classical regression model. In this work, we use solar radiation data from 41 stations that are spread over the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The solar radiation data from 31 locations are used for training the neural networks and the data from the remaining 10 locations are used for testing the estimated values. However, the testing data were not used in the modeling or training of the networks to give an indication of the performance of the system at unknown locations. Results indicate the viability of the radial basis for this kind of problem.

The present study aims at investigating English as a Foreign Language (EFL) Saudi students’
adaption of Twitter and utilizing it as an English language learning tool and the different
characteristics of each adopter category using Roger’s Diffusion of Innovation Theory (DOI).
It targets both the foundation year Saudi female university students studying EFL at the
English Language Institute (ELI) at King Abdul Aziz University (KAU) as well as the male
and female Saudi students studying English at English language institutes abroad. The sample
will consist of 50 female preparatory year students (PYS) studying EFL at the ELI. Their
ages will range between the ages of 18 and 21 years old and will all be likely to come from an
Arab origin. Furthermore, the study will include 50 male and female English learners who are
studying abroad. This quantitative study uses a three parts questionnaire. The first part will
request demographic information from participants such as age, years of experiences,
academic ranking, and the level they are studying in the students' case. In the second section,
participants were asked to choose the response that describes the degree to which they use the
innovation (Twitter). In the last section, participants were asked to read 23 statements that
measure the different characteristics of each adopter category which influence the user
intention and behavior. The 23 statements were based on the five perceived attributes of
innovations derived by Rogers (2003). A five-point Likert-type scale ranging from strongly
agrees to strongly disagree was applied to assess the perceived attributes of Twitter. The
researcher aims at identifying valuable insights on how much the social network website
Twitter is accepted and used as a learning tool for Saudi language learners. Therefore, based
on the findings of this study, researchers in the same field may expand the study by moving
to further experimental research that maybe carried out to investigate the effectiveness of
Twitter as a teaching tool in the ELI classroom at KAU and other language institutes outside
the Kingdom.

The Gulf Cooperation Countries (GCC) consistently rank among the top 10% of per capita waste producers in the world. Collectively around 120 million tons of waste is produced annually in GCC; 55% construction and demolition (C&D) waste, 20% municipal solid waste (MSW), 18% industrial waste, and 7% hazardous waste. Like other GCC nations, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) generates massive amounts of MSW, C&D waste, and industrial waste. This study aims to examine 81 construction companies in the Eastern Province of KSA to determine which factors critically affect the sustainable management of C&D waste in the country. Only 39.5% of the companies studied had a pollution control plan for their projects. It was also found that only 13.6% of C&D waste is recycled and reused every year, whereas the remaining 86.4% C&D waste eventually goes to the landfills. Most of the C&D waste in the country is a promising source of potential recyclable construction materials such as gravel from debris, metals, and sand. This would not only fulfill the requirements of gravel and metal production of the KSA but also solve the waste disposal issues along with generating huge economic benefits. However, to accomplish the goal of sustainable construction waste management, it is critical to underline the various factors that might impact the construction waste management practices in the country. Keywords Construction and demolition (C&D) waste · Municipal solid waste (MSW) · Waste recycling · Landfill sites · Sustainable construction material

Water management in Saudi Arabia is facing major challenges due to the limited water resources and increasing uncertainties caused by climate change. This paper presents an analysis of the daily, monthly and annual mean, maximum and total rainfall records of the Saudi meteorological data for nineteen cities covering the all thirteen districts for more than three decades (1980 to 2010). An increased annual total and maximum rainfall was observed for 6 cities with the decreased trends in both parameters for the same number of cities. For the reaming seven cities, however, an increased annual maximum rainfall trend was seen in opposite to the decreased annual total rainfall. This opposite rainfall trend is also seen for the 12 months of the year for the same city which signifies the variability of changing climate pattern not only in different districts but also during the year. The increased rain intensities due to climate change results in flooding of short in urban centers which are designed based on dry climates. Finally, the recommendations are made for the rooftop rainwater harvesting and management to cope with the increasing short-duration floods and to provide an additional source of drinking water. Co-operations among official efforts, local NGOs and public are suggested for better results of water supply management due to rainwater harvesting in Saudi Arabia in a changing climate associated with increased rainfall intensities.