The distribution and growth of urban settlements in Saudi Arabia

This paper examines the distribution characteristics of urban settlements in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia through major dimensions such as settlement regularly, degree of primacy and polarisation at the national and geographic regional levels. The paper points out that the settlement pattern at the national level has transformed from a primate distribution during the pre-plan period (< 1970) to an intermediary distribution during the period of development planning (1970 >). At the geographical regional level the settlement distribution, however, has shown diverse pattern. While the regional settlement distribution of Western and Eastern Region have shown trends of increasing polarisation, settlements in the Northern and Southern Regions are more log-normal in character. This is explained by the increasing growth of small and intermediary towns in the Northern and Southern Regions. The paper concludes that the national trend of decreasing urban primacy, induced by the decentralised national development strategies, is less pronounced due to the absence of a balanced regional investment policy. Since the government expenditure and settlement population growth rates are not related, slow growing primate cities continue to receive a larger share of public expenditure, enabling them to retain their primacy. This calls for a balanced regional investment policy to fully realise the national strategy of regional balance and multi-polar settlement pattern.     

Using time-lapse 4D seismic to monitor saturation changes in carbonate reservoirs

In the past ten years, time-lapse (4D) seismic has evolved as a standard way of monitoring reservoir performance. The method is now being used as good reservoir management practice to provide evidence of saturation changes within the reservoir at field scale. 4D provides a new piece of data describing the dynamic behavior of the reservoir fluids between the wells, often limited to small scale monitoring at the borehole scale. Thus, it provides sophisticated techniques for reservoir monitoring and management relying on the integration of geological models, static and dynamic properties of the reservoir rock, and detailed production and pressure field data.While 4D seismic data has been very successful in monitoring hydrocarbon production from clastic reservoirs, this work has focused on implementing 4D time lapse to monitor saturation changes in carbonate reservoirs and it’s capability to be used as enhanced oil recovery (EOR) tool that can help in enhancing the recovery factor for the filed and help to locate new drilling to sweep more oil out of the reservoir and locate the by-pass oil.The principal goal of this research was to detect the maximum change in seismic attributes (amplitude, acoustic impedance, travel time) that could occur as a result of oil production, water and gas injection in carbonate reservoirs by using time-lapse 4D seismic.     

Linear flow behaviour of matched joints – case study on standard JRC profiles

Roughness on rock joints produces a variable aperture across the joints and increases the flow path length. These conditions should be taken into account for a good approximation from cubic law. In this paper, the concept of local true aperture and tortuosity is applied to assumed joints where surfaces are matched to each other and correspond with standard Joint Roughness Coefficient (JRC) profiles. Furthermore, the hydraulic behaviour of JRC profiles is studied by a new laboratory experiment setup. The analytical approach provides new insights into the effects of roughness on hydraulic properties of rock joints. The results indicate that for a constant mechanical aperture, both the minimum local aperture and hydraulic aperture decrease with increasing JRC. Furthermore, tortuosity and standard deviation of local true aperture increase with JRC increment. The trend obtained between different parameters and JRC shows an obvious fluctuation for JRC lower than 10. On one hand, the results of this study along with a critical review of previous studies demonstrate that JRC profiles cannot present a precise roughness increment when JRC is less than 10. A new laboratory setup was designed to study the flow behaviour of JRC profiles. The results obtained from laboratory experiments under linear flow conditions validate the accuracy of the applied analytical method.     

A simulation-optimization system for evaluating flood management and environmental flow supply by reservoirs

Natural Hazards - The present study proposes and evaluates an applicable simulation-optimization framework for simulating and evaluating flood management and environmental flow supply by the...     

Geochemistry,zircon UPb ages and Hf isotopes of granites and pegmatites from Gubrunde region in the Eastern Nigeria Terrane: Insight into magmatism and tectonic evolution of the late Pan-African orogeny

This study reports a new dataset of whole-rock geochemistry, biotite chemistry, in situ zircon UPb geochronology and Hf isotope for a suite of granite and associated pegmatite samples from the Gubrunde region in the Eastern Nigeria Terrane (ENT), Nigeria. The Gubrunde granitic rocks are weakly ferroan, peraluminous and calc-alkalic to alkali-calcic in composition, and show I-type affinity. The zircon UPb geochronology gives an age of ~580 Ma for the rocks, although the presence of inherited zircons with early Pan-African ages of 696 ± 12, 647 ± 7 and 624–613 Ma are evident indicative of a complex history of their source rocks. The Gubrunde granite and the pegmatite yielded similar average Hf crustal model age T_DM2 of 1.9 ± 0.1 Ga and εHf(t) values ?6.2 ± 1.2, suggesting that they may have sourced from reworked old crustal rocks with minor contributions from the mantle. The granite and the pegmatite were likely to connect by fractional crystallization under low to moderate pressure (~2.2 to 3.0 kbar) and temperature (~717 °C), and low oxygen fugacity (<ΔNNO ?1.14). The ca. 580 Ma magmatism may have been triggered by delamination of the lithospheric mantle as a consequence of crustal thinning during waning stage of the Pan-African orogeny.     

Human genome behaviour: a powerful mechanism for optimizing the use of space technology in surveying networks design

An approach based on the behaviour of human genome is developed to efficiently provide a general framework for optimizing the use of space technology in surveying networks design. The developed approach attempts to apply the successful self-organizing principles based upon the biological evolution to artificial intelligence. It mimics the phenomena of natural selection observed in nature to achieve its goals by continuously adopting a population of candidate solutions and improving its performance over successive generations. The goal of adaptation is to find the best solution that optimizes the design of a surveying network based on the use of satellite observations. This network can be defined as a set of stations, co-ordinated by a series of sessions formed by placing receivers on the stations. The problem is to search for the best order for observing these sessions to give the best observation schedule at minimum cost. The obtained results prove the effectiveness of the developed technique in term of solution quality and computational efforts. The Corresponding Author in formed me that his address is likely to change soon. Please contact me, leick@spatial.maine.edu for the latest on this change.     

Conventional terrestrial system by VLBI a kinematic approach

The paper examines the potential ofVLBI time delay observables for the establishment and maintenance of a Conventional Terrestrial System (CTS). TheCTS is defined in2-D by the standard epoch positions and velocities of a network of control points located on a spherical reference surface. VLBI time delay observables are sensitive to the rotational motion of theCTS control points with respect to a Conventional Inertial System (CIS) which is represented by a network of radio sources. The motion of a control point with respect to theCIS is partitioned into global and regional components. The global components represent the rotational motion of the sphere with respect to theCIS, while the regional components represent the motion of theCTS points with respect to the sphere.