Nadhir Al-Ansari

Luleå University of Technology | LTU · Department of Civil, Environmental and Natural resources engineering

Evapotranspiration plays a pivotal role in the hydrological cycle. It is essential to develop an accurate computational model for predicting reference evapotranspiration (RET) for agricultural and hydrological applications, especially for the management of irrigation systems, allocation of water resources, assessments of utilization and demand and...

Evapotranspiration plays a pivotal role in the hydrological cycle. It is essential to develop an accurate computational model for predicting reference evapotranspiration (RET) for agricultural and hydrological applications, especially for the management of irrigation systems, allocation of water resources, assessments of utilization and demand and...

In winter, the paddy residues become wet during morning and late evening due to dew, which restricts the operation of sowing machines (Happy Seeder and Super Seeder) into paddy residues, as wet residues do not slide on furrow openers/tines. A PAU Smart Seeder (PSS) was developed and evaluated for a four-wheel tractor that can sow wheat with optimum...

Accurate prediction of reference evapotranspiration (ETo) is crucial for many water-related fields, including crop modelling, hydrologic simulations, irrigation scheduling and sustainable water management. This study compares the performance of different soft computing models such as artificial neural network (ANN), wavelet-coupled ANN (WANN), adap...

Thermal energy is utilized as an environmentally friendly energy source for seasonal heat and cold storage on a global scale. Specifcally, the aquifer thermal energy storage system is highlighted for being cost-efective in cooling and heating applications. The study assesses the sustainability of the aquifer thermal energy storage in the Halabja-...

Thermal energy is utilized as an environmentally friendly energy source for seasonal heat and cold storage on a global scale. Specifically, the aquifer thermal energy storage system is highlighted for being cost-effective in cooling and heating applications. The study assesses the sustainability of the aquifer thermal energy storage in the Halabja-...

Phosphorus (P) use efficiency in alkaline/calcareous soils is only 20% due to precipitation of P2O5 with calcium and magnesium. However, coating Diammonium Phosphate (DAP) with phosphorus solubilizing bacteria (PSB) is more appropriate to increase fertilizer use efficiency. Therefore, with the aim to use inorganic fertilizers more effectively prese...

Despite the many articles about activated carbon with different precursors in adsorption process, no in-depth research has been carried out to understand the causes of the difference in surface adsorption characteristics of activated carbon with different precursors and different activation processes. In this work, the ability of two active carbon...

Suspended sediment concentration prediction is critical for the design of reservoirs, dams, rivers ecosystems, various operations of aquatic resource structure, environmental safety, and water management. In this study, two different machine models, namely the cascade correlation neural network (CCNN) and feedforward neural network (FFNN) were appl...

Scour depth downstream of weirs is considered one of the most important hydraulic problems, which greatly influences the stability of weirs. Recently, artificial intelligence (AI) methods have become increasingly popular in modeling hydraulic variables, especially scour depth, because they can capture nonlinear relationships between input variables...

Forecasting river flow is crucial for optimal planning, management, and sustainability using freshwater resources. Many machine learning (ML) approaches have been enhanced to improve streamflow prediction. Hybrid techniques have been viewed as a viable method for enhancing the accuracy of univariate streamflow estimation when compared to standalone...

Recent textile industry expansion has a major environmental impact if not addressed. Being a water intensive industry, textile manufacturing is usually associated with wastewater management challenges. Electrocoagulation (EC) is recognized as one of the effective solutions to address these challenges. This study aims to investigate the potential of...

The Danube is a significant transboundary river on a global scale, with several tributaries. The effluents from industrial operations and wastewater treatment plants have an impact on the river's aquatic ecosystem. These discharges provide a significant threat to aquatic life by deteriorating the quality of water and sediment. Hence, a total of 16...

The estimation of groundwater levels is crucial and an important step in ensuring sustainable management of water resources. In this paper, selected piezometers of the Hamedan-Bahar plain located in west of Iran. The main objective of this study is to compare effect of various pre-processing methods on input data for different artificial intelligen...

Precise assessment of water footprint to improve the water consumption and crop yield for irrigated agricultural efficiency is required in order to achieve water management sustainability. Although Penman-Monteith is more successful than other methods and it is the most frequently used technique to calculate water footprint, however, it requires a...

Sediment and nutrient pollution in water bodies is threatening human health and the ecosystem, due to rapid land use changes and improper agricultural practices. The impact of the nonpoint source pollution needs to be evaluated for the sustainable use of water resources. An ideal tool like the soil and water assessment tool (SWAT) can assess the im...

This paper presents a comprehensive method to estimate the feasibility of constructing small hydropower dams by incorporating an analysis of the physical characteristics of the study area using the Geographical Information System (GIS) and a frequency analysis based on a large amount of reliable rainfall data for an arid area, specifically in the W...

In recent years, the city of AL-Hilla in Babylon, Iraq has suffered from the illegal fragmentation of agricultural and orchard lands, leading to their conversion into residential areas. This transformation has had a negative impact on the economic viability of plantation and vegetation lands, affecting the climate and causing an increase in tempera...

Nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) are vital for crop growth. However, most agricultural systems have limited inherent ability to supply N and P to crops. Biochars (BCs) are strongly advocated in agrosystems and are known to improve the availability of N and P in crops through diferent chemical transformations. Herein, a soil-biochar incubation experi...

Land subsidence is considered a threat to developing cities and is triggered by several natural (geological and seismic) and human (mining, groundwater withdrawal, oil and gas extraction, constructions) factors. This research has gathered datasets consisting of 80 Sentinel-1A ascending and descending SLC images from July 2017 to July 2019. This dat...

Rainfall is crucial for the development and management of water resources. Six hybrid soft computing models, including multilayer perceptron (MLP)–Henry gas solubility optimization (HGSO), MLP–bat algorithm (MLP–BA), MLP–particle swarm optimization (MLP–PSO), radial basis neural network function (RBFNN)–HGSO, RBFNN–PSO, and RBFGNN–BA, were used in...

A common challenge for urban areas in developed countries is increasing the amount of solid waste. The Sulaimaniyah Governorate, located in the north of Iraq, characterized by a semi-arid climate region. Currently, there is no landfill site in the study area, and inappropriate solid waste dumping is causing adverse environmental impacts. This study...

Stepped weirs are used in a wide range of applications, designed to increase energy dissipation. In this study, laboratory experiments were conducted in a flume on six stepped weir models, with a downstream angle of θ = 26.6°. The physical models used were on a scale of 10:1, and tests of discharges up to 0.055 m ³ /s were carried out. Several step...

One of the direct and unavoidable consequences of global warming-induced rising temperatures is the more recurrent and severe heatwaves. In recent years, even countries like Malaysia seldom had some mild to severe heatwaves. As the Earth's average temperature continues to rise, heatwaves in Malaysia will undoubtedly worsen in the future. It is cruc...

The current study involves a synthesis of a composite of nickel oxide nanoparticles (NiONPs) with a chromium dopant to yield (Cr/NiONPs). Synthesis of nickel oxide was performed by the co-precipitation method. The synthesis of the composite was conducted by the impregnation method. FTIR, EDX, SEM, and XRD were used to characterize the synthesized m...

The river stage is certainly an important indicator of how the water level fluctuates overtime. Continuous control of the water stage can help build an early warning indicator of floods along rivers and streams. Hence, forecasting river stages up to several days in advance is very important and constitutes a challenging task. Over the past few deca...

A straightforward and efficient spectrum technique was created using Ortho-chloranil as the electron acceptor (-acceptor) in a charge transfer (CT) complex formation reaction to determine the concentration of famotidine (FMD) in solutions. Compared to the double-distilled blank solution, the reaction result detected a definite violet colour at a ma...

An accurate assessment of nitrate leaching is important for efficient fertiliser utilisation and groundwater pollution reduction. However, past studies could not efficiently model nitrate leaching due to utilisation of conventional algorithms. To address the issue, the current research employed advanced machine learning algorithms, viz., Support Ve...

The commonly used precipitation-based drought indices typically rely on probability distribution functions that can be suitable when the data exhibit minimal discrepancies. However, in arid and semi-arid regions, the precipitation data often display significant discrepancies due to highly irregular rainfall patterns. Consequently, imposing any prob...

This study delves into the application of hybrid extreme machine-based techniques for solar radiation prediction in Adrar, Algeria. The models under evaluation include the Extreme Learning Machine (ELM), Weighted Extreme Learning Machine (WELM), and Self-Adaptive Extreme Learning Machine (SA-ELM), with a comparative analysis based on various perfor...

Exploration of groundwater is an integral part of viable resource growth for society, economy, and irrigation. However, uncontrolled utilization is mainly reported in urban and industries due to the increasing demand for water in semi-arid and arid regions of the world. In the background, groundwater demarcation for potential areas is vital in meet...

In the context of degradation of soil health, environmental pollution, and yield stagnation in the rice–wheat system in the Indo-Gangetic Plains of South Asia, an experiment was established in split plot design to assess the long-term effect of crop residue management on productivity and phosphorus requirement of wheat in rice–wheat system. The exp...

The treatment of methylene blue (MB) dye wastewater through the adsorption process has been a subject of extensive research. However, a comprehensive understanding of the thermodynamic aspects of dye solution adsorption is lacking. Previous studies have primarily focused on enhancing the adsorption capacity of methylene blue dye. This study aimed t...

In the plains of western North India, traditional rice and wheat cropping systems (RWCS) consume a significant amount of energy and carbon. In order to assess the long-term energy budgets, ecological footprint, and greenhouse gas (GHG) pollutants from RWCS with residual management techniques, field research was conducted which consisted of fourteen...

The problem of water scarcity can be noticed clearly in the lined canals which provide the irrigation networks. Using porous structures like gabion weirs contributes as a part solution to this problem. In the current study, a laboratory flume was used to calculate the water depths upstream and downstream of the stepped gabion weir that is to be put...

Evaluation of water quality is important for the management of water resources. The current study is focused on the interpretation of the water quality monitoring data of the Tigris River in Iraq by the application of the principal component analysis (PCA), cluster analysis (CA), and water quality index (WQI). Twelve water quality parameters were t...

A geological field survey was conducted in Soran District in the Beeston cave located in the Bradost Anticline, northeastern Iraq. The presence of an upper hole in the ceiling of the cave with a diameter of about 3 meters and a main gap dimension is up to 40 x 22 m was found through that. ‎ In combination with an analysis of the remote sensing data...

In this research, an assessment was conducted for several materials to examine their efficiency for sorption phosphate and their potential use as filter media. This work focuses on seeking materials that can achieve high, rapid, and robust phosphate retention. To assess the phosphate removal efficiency, batch-mode testing was conducted. The capabil...

The rivers, channels, canals, and other water ways convey and distribute the water to the irrigation field networks. Distribution of water for irrigation purposes subjects to a principle called as "The water duty". This principle is important to satisfy a justified distribution of water for the irrigation projects, and affected by many variables. O...

This study addresses the issue of eliminating Congo red dye from aqueous solutions through green pyrolysis of hybrid iron oxides/graphene-coated iron slag. A novel adsorbent was developed, utilizing cost-effective date fruit-derived graphite and iron slag byproducts. The resulting macroporous structures resemble two-dimensional graphene sheets on a...

Rainfall is crucial for the development and management of water resources. Six hybrid soft computing models, including multilayer perceptron (MLP)–Henry gas solubility optimization (HGSO), MLP–bat algorithm (MLP–BA), MLP–particle swarm optimization (MLP–PSO), radial basis neural network function (RBFNN)–HGSO, RBFNN–PSO, and RBFGNN–BA, were used in...

Recently, the spread of white spot disease in shrimps has a major impact on the aquaculture activity worldwide affecting the economy of the countries, especially SouthEast Asian countries like Vietnam. This deadly disease in shrimps is caused by the White Spot Syndrome Virus (WSSV). Researchers are trying to understand the spread and control of thi...

Recently, the spread of white spot disease in shrimps has a major impact on the aquaculture activity worldwide affecting the economy of the countries, especially SouthEast Asian countries like Vietnam. This deadly disease in shrimps is caused by the White Spot Syndrome Virus (WSSV). Researchers are trying to understand the spread and control of thi...

Increasing global energy consumption has become an urgent problem as natural energy sources such as oil, gas, and uranium are rapidly running out. Research into renewable energy sources such as solar energy is being pursued to counter this. Solar energy is one of the most promising renewable energy sources, as it has the potential to meet the world...

Increasing global energy consumption has become an urgent problem as natural energy sources such as oil, gas, and uranium are rapidly running out. Research into renewable energy sources such as solar energy is being pursued to counter this. Solar energy is one of the most promising renewable energy sources, as it has the potential to meet the world...

Rapid industrialization, urbanization, global warming, and climate change are compromising surface water quality across the globe. Consequently, water conservation is essential for both environmental sustainability and human survival. This study assesses the water quality of the Jamuna River in Bangladesh at five distinct sites during wet and dry s...

Accurate forecasting techniques for a stochastic pattern of water demand are essential for any city that faces high variability in climate factors and a shortage of water resources. This study was the first research to assess the impact of climatic factors on urban water demand in Iraq, which is one of the hottest countries in the world. We develop...

15 Efficient thermal insulation materials considerably lower power consumption for heating and cooling of buildings, 16 which in turn minimises CO2 emissions and improves indoor comfort conditions. However, the selection of suita-17 ble insulation materials is governed by several factors, such as the environmental impact, health impact, cost and 18...

The indiscriminate use of groundwater and its overexploitation has led to a significant decline in groundwater resources in India, making it essential to identify potential recharge zones for aquifer recharge. A study was conducted to determine such potential recharge zones in the Nandhour-Kailash River watershed. The study area included 1481 strea...

Vypin, Vallarpadam, and Bolgatty are significant tropical coastal islands situated in the humid tropical Kerala region of India, notable for their environmental sensitivity. This study con�ducted a comprehensive assessment of shoreline alterations on these islands by integrating Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) technique...

Iraq is located in the extreme northeastern part of the Arabian Plate, which is in collision with the Iranian (Eurasian) Plate. The collision, which is still ongoing has created tens of folds some of which exhibit different types of faults. The exerted compressional forces are believed to be decreasing southwestwards as being far from the collision...

Iraqi territory is located in the northeastern part of the Arabian Plate covering the collision zone with the Eurasian (Iranian) Plate in the northeast. This collision, which is still active with convergent tectonics, has caused deformation in the rocks of the Zagros Mountains with different intensities. The deformation intensity decreases southwes...

several countries, especially those that depend on groundwater as a main source of drinking water. Therefore, many treatment methods, such as chemical precipitation and membrane, were practised to remove F− from water. However, the traditional methods suffer from many limitations, such as the high cost and the slowness. Hence, many studies have bee...

Perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS), a perfluoroalkyl substance, has engendered alarm over its presence in water sources due to its intrinsic toxicity. Hence, there is a pressing need to identify efficacious adsorbents capable of removing PFAS derivatives from water. To achieve this, batch adsorption studies under various circumstances were employ...

Accurate groundwater level (GWL) forecasts are crucial for the efficient utilization, strategic long-term planning, and sustainable management of finite groundwater resources. These resources have a substantial impact on decisions related to irrigation planning, crop selection, and water supply. This study evaluates data-driven models using differe...

Estrogenic hormones, found as micropollutants in water systems, give rise to grave concerns for human health and marine ecosystems, triggering a cascade of adverse effects. This research presents an innovative manufacturing approach using nanoscale layered double hydroxides of magnesium and iron, with sodium dodecyl sulfate surfactant, to create hi...

Iraq is part of the Fertile Crescent with the two large rivers: Tigris and Euphrates and their tributaries that secure the required quantity and quality of water to the Iraqi population for their different uses; including agriculture, industry, and other domestic requirements. During the last decades, however, the quantity and quality of water in t...

Magnetic water treatment (magnetic treatment device (MTD)) has long been a contentious procedure for domestic water treatment. This study examines the pros and cons of using different water types with and without a magnetic field treatment for growing French bean crop irrigation. The MTD used in this experiment works by ionizing the dissolved solid...

: Rainfall–runoff modeling has been the core of hydrological research studies for decades. To comprehend this phenomenon, many machine learning algorithms have been widely used. Never�theless, a thorough comparison of machine learning algorithms and the effect of pre-processing on their performance is still lacking in the literature. Therefore, the...

Rainfall–runoff modeling has been the core of hydrological research studies for decades. To comprehend this phenomenon, many machine learning algorithms have been widely used. Nevertheless, a thorough comparison of machine learning algorithms and the effect of pre-processing on their performance is still lacking in the literature. Therefore, the ma...

Understanding the variability in the mechanical and hydrological soil characteristics resulting from diverse tillage and residue management practices is essential for evaluating the adoption of conservation strategies to preserve soil’s physical well-being. Zero-tillage techniques combined with residue retention or incorporation have gained widespr...

Many Bacillus species are essential antibacterial agents, but their antibiosis potential still needs to be elucidated to its full extent. Here, we isolated a soil bacterium, BP9, which has significant antibiosis activity against fungal and bacterial pathogens. BP9 improved the growth of wheat seedlings via active colonization and demonstrated effec...

Land use change (LUC) has direct and indirect consequences on soil quality. To gain insight into how LUC influences the physical properties of soil, it can be advantageous to compare undisturbed ecosystems with those that have naturally evolved over time, as well as to use soil quality indices to pinpoint the sensitivity of each ecosystem and land...

Land use change (LUC) has direct and indirect consequences on soil quality. To gain insight into how LUC influences the physical properties of soil, it can be advantageous to compare undisturbed ecosystems with those that have naturally evolved over time, as well as to use soil quality indices to pinpoint the sensitivity of each ecosystem and land...

In recent years, there has been a serious request for innovative, accurate approaches to be determined and controlled for dam failures. The present study aims to explore and evaluate the flood wave parameters that result from a dam break due to piping failure occurring in the body of the dam and routing the flood waves. Mosul Dam, which lies in the...

In recent years, there has been a serious request for innovative, accurate approaches to be determined and controlled for dam failures. The present study aims to explore and evaluate the flood wave parameters that result from a dam break due to piping failure occurring in the body of the dam and routing the flood waves. Mosul Dam, which lies in the...

Many Bacillus species are essential antibacterial agents, but their antibiosis potential still needs to be elucidated to its full extent. Here, we isolated a soil bacterium, BP9, which has significant antibiosis activity against fungal and bacterial pathogens. BP9 improved the growth of wheat seedlings via active colonization and demonstrated effec...

The alarming pace of environmental degradation necessitates the treatment of wastewater from the oil industry in order to ensure the long-term sustainability of human civilization. Electrocoagulation has emerged as a promising method for optimizing the removal of chemical oxygen demand (COD) from wastewater obtained from oil refineries. Therefore,...

Hydrological resource management, including crop watering and irrigation scheduling,relies on reliable estimates of reference evapotranspiration (ETo). However, previous studies of forecasting ETo have not dealt with comparing single and hybrid metaheuristic algorithms in much detail. This study aims to assess the efficiency of a novel methodology...

Forecasting river flow is crucial for optimal planning, management, and sustainability using freshwater resources. Many machine learning (ML) approaches have been enhanced to improve streamflow prediction. Hybrid techniques have been viewed as a viable method for enhancing the accuracy of univariate streamflow estimation when compared to standalone...

The volume of the stilling basin can be reduced, energy can be dissipated, and floods can be contained with the help of spillways. The aim of this Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) study is to investigate how compound slopes change water flows through spillways. To measure turbulence, the Realizable k-ε model was used, and the multiphase volume of...

Vast parts of the globe are facing a water scarcity problem owing to the increasing water demand of the growing population and urban expansion, and intensive agriculture and industrial activities. Arid and semiarid areas already suffer from a severe shortage of surface water supplies due to climatic conditions such as a temperature rise, evaporatio...

Dust storm in Iran's western regions has been one of its major environmental problems in recent years, which has not only turned into a yearly phenomenon but is also expanding. This study investigated two events of dominant dust in southwestern Iran using moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer imagery, Reanalysis Datasets (meteorological fie...

This research is intended to be applied to the scheduling of the Shattulhilla River in Babylon City and has broad application for open channel projects in Iraq. The obtained results clarify that genetic algorithm optimization modeling is a sophisticated tool that could now be utilized by operators of irrigation projects to timetable open channels o...

Methane (CH4) is a greenhouse gas resulting from human activities, especially landflls, and it has any potential environmental issues, such as its major role in global warming. On the other hand,methane can be converted to liquid fuel or electricity using chemical conversion or gas turbine generators. Therefore, reusing such gases could be of great...

Methane (CH 4) is a greenhouse gas resulting from human activities, especially landfills, and it has many potential environmental issues, such as its major role in global warming. On the other hand, methane can be converted to liquid fuel or electricity using chemical conversion or gas turbine generators. Therefore, reusing such gases could be of g...

The design and selection of ideal emitter discharge rates can be aided by accurate information regarding the wetted soil pattern under surface drip irrigation. The current field investigation was conducted in an apple orchard in SKUAST- Kashmir, Jammu and Kashmir, a Union Territory of India, during 2017–2019. The objective of the experiment was to...

The design and selection of ideal emitter discharge rates can be aided by accurate information regarding the wetted soil pattern under surface drip irrigation. The current feld investigation was conducted in an apple orchard in SKUAST- Kashmir, Jammu and Kashmir, a Union Territory of India, during 2017–2019. The objective of the experiment was to e...