Sharif Digital Repository

One of the significant challenges in urbanization is the air pollution. This highlights the need of the green city concept with reconsideration of houses, factories, and traffic in a green viewpoint. The literature review confirms that this reconsideration for green space has a positive effect on the air quality of large cities and to reduce the air pollution. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the annual vegetation changes in the green space of Mashhad, Iran as a very populated city in the middle east to study the air pollution. To investigate the relationship between the air pollution and vegetation, the Landsat 8 satellite images for summer seasons of 2013–2019 were used to extract... 

One of the significant challenges in urbanization is the air pollution. This highlights the need of the green city concept with reconsideration of houses, factories, and traffic in a green viewpoint. The literature review confirms that this reconsideration for green space has a positive effect on the air quality of large cities and to reduce the air pollution. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the annual vegetation changes in the green space of Mashhad, Iran as a very populated city in the middle east to study the air pollution. To investigate the relationship between the air pollution and vegetation, the Landsat 8 satellite images for summer seasons of 2013–2019 were used to extract... 

Vegetation acts as a momentum and thermal sink, affecting the mixing of species and temperature-dependent constants of reaction rates. Numerical simulations were performed to investigate the effects of vegetation on the dispersion of reactive pollutants using a computational fluid dynamic (CFD) model coupled with NO-NO2-O3 photochemistry. Moreover, characteristics of temperature and flow fields were analyzed for different aspect ratios and leaf area densities. The results showed that flow is reversed in the presence of trees, and it enhances as leaf area density (LAD) increases; additionally, vegetation creates downward and vortex flows. The results also revealed that the dispersion of... 

Iran is a country in a dry part of the world and extensively suffers from drought. Drought is a natural, temporary, and iterative phenomenon that is caused by shortage in rainfall, which affects people's health and well-being adversely as well as impacting the society's economy and politics with far-reaching consequences. Information on intensity, duration, and spatial coverage of drought can help decision makers to reduce the vulnerability of the drought-affected areas, and therefore, lessen the risks associated with drought episodes. One of the major challenges of modeling drought (and short-term forecasting) in Iran is unavailability of long-term meteorological data for many parts of the... 

The food industry is dealing with the challenge of preserving fruits and vegetables and extending their shelf life, so the methods of food preservation have been investigated. Pathogens causing intestinal infections have been identified as a major cause of human disease; therefore, efforts should be made to reduce these pathogens in fruits and vegetables. Essential oils extracted from herbs and edible plants have natural antimicrobial additives. Due to their low water solubility, high volatility, and strong organoleptic qualities, essential oils are not commonly used to reduce microbial growth in fruits and vegetables. To overcome these challenges, encapsulation of essential oils in... 

Understanding the mechanism of dispersion within plants is essential for proper operation of natural and constructed treatment wetlands. Plant deflection induced by the current drag modifies the flow and dispersion within an aquatic canopy. In this study, we look at the effect of the deflection angle of the plants on transverse dispersion. Experiments were carried out in a current flume on an array of inclined solid rods representing a deflected emergent canopy. The stem Reynolds number varied between 90 and 360, normalized stem densities between 0.011 and 0.033, and the inclination angles between 0° and 45°. The plume development was recorded using image processing technique. A special... 

This study investigates a supply chain of perishable fruits and vegetables. A simulation model using system dynamics approach is proposed to study the behaviors and relationships within the supply chain and to determine the impact of the supply, demand and price interactions. The proposed model yields an insight into the overall agricultural system, taking into account the influence of import quota policies. The purpose of this study is to develop a multi-objective model identifying the best import quota policy for Tehran Municipality Organization of Fruits and Vegetables. The multiple objectives are considered to be price mean, price variation and markup. Key conclusions were reached on how... 

Tehran, the capital of Iran, is one of the most polluted cities in the Middle East. However, there is no clear evidence of the effects of Tehran green spaces on reducing air pollution because there are still challenges to application of vegetation for improving air quality. The current study investigates the effects of a large volume of green space with 275 ha area in the vicinity of major highways on nearby air quality. Similar environments are often seen in many cities around the world. A computational fluid dynamics model containing aerodynamics and deposition effects of vegetation was used to simulate pollutant dispersion for eight wind directions and three different foliage densities.... 

Irrigation is not well represented in land surface, hydrological, and climate models. One way to account for irrigation is by assimilating satellite soil moisture data that contains irrigation signal with land surface models. In this study, the irrigation detection ability of SMAP enhanced 9 km and SMAP-Sentinel 1 (SMAP-S1), 3 km and 1 km soil moisture products are evaluated using the first moment (mean) and the second moment (variability) of soil moisture data. The SMAP enhanced 9 km soil moisture product lacks irrigation signals in an irrigated plain south of Urmia Lake, whereas SMAP-S1 products record irrigation signal in soil moisture variability. Despite observing higher variability... 

Natural and modified clays were applied as adsorbents for the removal of organic contaminants from wastewater. This study presents an investigation on the technical feasibility of using modified minerals that are named organoclay for treatment of dissolved substances, mainly polyphenols in olive mill wastewater. The different parameters such as applied cation dosage were effective on the removal of contaminants by these adsorbents (%CEC), pollutant concentration, pH and particle size of minerals. In this investigation bentonite particles were modified by stirring the clay with a long chain quaternary ammonium cation. Doses of the applied cation varied from zero to 1.5 times the clay CEC.... 

Fruit and vegetable wastes are produced in large quantities in Iran, and constitute a source of nuisance in municipal landfills. The objective of this study was to optimize the applications of anaerobic digestion for the treatment of municipal organic wastes. We studied the effect of organic loading rates on anaerobic digestion of vegetable wastes. The complete-mix, pilot-scale digester with working volume of 70 1 was used. The experiments were conducted at 34°C with a fixed hydraulic retention time of 25 days. The digester was operated at different organic feeding rates of 1.4, 2 and 2.75 kg VS/(m3.d). The biogas produced had methane composition of 49.7- 64% and biogas production rates of...