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Abstract

Dust storms frequencies and strengths have been monitored during 2009 at different locations along the coastal areas of the United Arab Emirates as a representative site of the Arabian Gulf marine environment. The results have been compared with the previous five years data set. Furthermore mineralogical components of the collected dust samples during the study period have been analyzed using both XRD and XRF techniques. The results of comparison have allowed to evaluate changes occurred in dust storms characteristics over the Arabian Gulf and to consider it as a sensitive signal of climate changes over the region. It has been also found that due to the different wind patterns over the Arabian Gulf, the dust sources are variable both temporally and spatially and its variability can be confirmed by mineralogical composition of the dust samples. On the other hand, the mineralogical analyses have helped also in evaluating the beneficial nutritive contribution of dust deposition to the microbial productivity in the marine ecosystem of the Arabian Gulf.

Biography

Waleed Hamza, is an Oceanographer and Aquatic Ecologist. He is a very active and distinguished scientist and researcher. He is currently working as a professor of Aquatic Ecology at the Biology Department, Faculty of Science, United Arab Emirates University. He graduated from the University Union of Parma, Ferrara, Bologna and Roma La-sapienza-Italy in 1994, with a Ph.D. degree in Environmental Sciences. He has intensive academic, research, administrative and outreach interactions in Europe, West Asia, North Africa and North America. He is involved as a senior and a principal investigator (PI) in significant Marine and Limnological projects funded by USA (primary productivity and fish production in Lake Manzalah, Egypt; Sewage treatment and its disposal impact onthe Egyptian coastal areas) and European community (Mediterranean forecasting system Project- MFSP), in addition to the Eco-Nile project (Eawage- ETH, Switzerland). Recently (2008-2010). He has completed a project as PI funded by (Emirates Foundation. United Arab Emirates, and Max-Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, Bremen- Germany), regarding the nutritive contribution of the desert sand storms to the Arabian Gulf Marine Ecosystem. During the European Community project he acted as the Egyptian PI of the MFSP to build the Numerical 3D hydrodynamic and ecosystem model and to nest it with the General Circulation Hydrodynamic and Ecosystem model of the Mediterranean. In that phase he has been working in Finland, Greece, UK, Estonia, Netherlands and Italy .