The assessment of outdoor thermal comfort inside oasis settlements in North Africa - Algeria

Oasis settlements are the most common form in the Saharan regions of North Africa, identified by a strong harmony between urban forms and palm groves, which present the economic capital for these regions. On the other hand, these oases are significantly growing and impacting the people’s livelihood and thermal well-being, especially during summer season. This study aims at first to identify the close correlation between cultivated area (palm grove) and the built-up area throughout the Tolga Oasis Complex in Algeria, which is recognised by its palm groves and well-known as one of the largest oasis settlements of the Saharan regions in North Africa. Furthermore, the current work assesses the impact of palm groves by investigating the ‘oasis effect’ on the thermal heat stress levels during July and August daytime hours within 9 conducted stations. Suprisingly, the so-called oasis effect generated by palm groves was insignificant during the extreme hot days. On the other hand, the palm groves were extremly hot affected by a warming effect during daytime hours.

Assessment of the Outdoor Thermal Comfort in Oases Settlements

Oases throughout the world have become important ecosystems to replenish food and water supplies. The Saharan Oases exist above the largest underground water supplies in the World. In North Africa, oases witness significantly growing populations in the oasis towns and receive thousands of tourists yearly. In oasis settlements, the majority of the population spends most of the time outdoors, in extremely hot conditions; however, few studies have investigated urban outdoor thermal comfort conditions. Therefore, this study aimed to assess thermal comfort in the Tolga Oasis Complex and test the validity of the ‘oasis effect’ concept. The methodology is based on comparative field measurement and calculation approaches in the heart of Tolga Palm Grove and in different urban settlements. Results indicate highest heat stress levels (Physiologically Equivalent Temperature (PET) index) in the oases Palm Grove in July, PET = 41.7 °C, and urban settlements, PET = 40.9 °C. Despite the significant difference between the old and new settlement fabrics, our measurements and calculation did not identify any noticeable variation of thermal comfort. Thus, the oasis effect on the outdoor thermal comfort was insignificant (during July and August 2018). Finally, the study discusses ways to improve outdoor spaces design and relieve heat stress in the settlements of Tolga.

Impact of the oasis effect on wind tunnel measurements of ammonia volatilization from urea

The validity of emission factors derived from small-scale measurements of ammonia (NH3) volatilization has been questioned in the literature because gaseous NH3 concentration gradients differ at the edge of the measurement plot and may result in higher emissions than at field scale. We studied this “oasis effect” using two very long (22 m) wind tunnels constructed indoors over soil plots fertilized with surface-applied urea (20 g N m−2). We hypothesized that NH3 flux would be highest at the start of the tunnel and decrease with distance. Air NH3 concentration was measured every 2 m along each tunnel for 2 wk after urea application; NH3 flux did not decrease along the length of the tunnels. Of the 60 measurement periods, when there was significant NH3 volatilization, only two had a significant nonlinear relationship (P ≤ 0.05) between NH3 concentration and distance. For the other periods, the NH3 concentration increased linearly with distance (P ≤ 0.05). The background NH3 concentration difference between halves of the tunnels was not significantly related to NH3 flux difference (P > 0.1). Our results indicate that wind tunnel measurements of NH3 volatilization fertilized using urea are not impacted by a measurable oasis effect.

Evapotranspiration and simulation of soil water movement in small area vegetation

In Greece, crops are frequently cultivated in small isolated areas in close proximity to roads and bare soils and therefore evapotranspiration is affected by local advection. Under these circumstances, oasis effect conditions are present and evapotranspiration is higher than what is expected. In this paper, the evapotranspiration and soil water dynamics of a cotton crop cultivated in small areas under the oasis effect is studied. To this end, two isolated free-drainage lysimeters cultivated with cotton in the year 2007 were used. Soil moisture of the soil profile of both the lysimeters was monitored with two capacitance water content probes. The soil water balance method was used to estimate crop evapotranspiration and corresponding crop coefficients in one of the two lysimeters. These coefficients were 75% larger than the FAO-56 crop coefficients at the mid-season stage. The FAO-56 and the derived crop coefficients were used for the simulation of the water dynamics in the second lysimeter by the SWBACROS model. The derived crop coefficients for these conditions produced much better results than the FAO-56 crop coefficients. The results were improved when crop coefficient value equal to 2.5 was used for the mid-season stage.