Peeters Aviva | Sami Shamoon College of Engineering (original) (raw)

Papers by Peeters Aviva

This paper explores the origins of subterranean dwellings, their spatial and temporal dispersion ... more This paper explores the origins of subterranean dwellings, their spatial and temporal dispersion and their suitability for different climatic regions. Monitoring results from historical and contemporary structures are presented and analyzed, illustrating their sustainability aspects. However, the scope of this paper is also to reexamine and reassess various architectonic hypotheses and concepts, which seem to be challenged by the essence of subterranean dwellings. Thus, accepted role models of architecture, strongly differentiating between inside and outside, open versus closed space, and man-made space as opposed to the natural one, will be assessed. Similarly, commonly accepted terms such as “space” and “place” will be reassessed within the context of subterranean dwellings.
Though this paper is not a polemic for a massive “underground migration”, it evaluates the virtues and advantages of underground construction, in specific cases and places, and especially in areas of specific geotopographic characteristics. Underground construction is also presented as a reverse of Le Corbusier’s attitude towards creating open spaces and combining built-up and natural environments.

The paper reviews briefly regional constraints and trends in the Middle East and North Africa (ME... more The paper reviews briefly regional constraints and trends in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), among them environmental climatic and social ones, which should affect planning, design and construction policies and practices. It reviews the current state of legislation regarding energy and other green building issues, as well as the various voluntary tools which are being promoted in the region. Covering 20 countries (from Turkey to Yemen, from Morocco to Iran), and based on over 150 documents in Arabic, English, French, Turkish and Hebrew, the paper concludes that the pace of building practices adaptations is far from meeting the pace of needs and constraints. The repercussions on the liveability of buildings and settlements, and the survivability and resilience potential of communities in the arid regions of MENA, may well be at risk. Thus, for many countries in the region, green building (and the standards that encourage this) are not a luxury of developed countries, which they might adopt in the future once more pressing constraints are eased, but, rather, a critical development goal to lessen these constraints and allow a viable path into such a future.

Journal of Architectural Education

Precision Agriculture, 2022

Wide assimilation of precision agriculture among farmers is currently dependent on the ability to... more Wide assimilation of precision agriculture among farmers is currently dependent on the ability to demonstrate its efficiency at the field-scale. Yet, most experiments that compare variable-rate vs uniform application (VRA and UA) are performed in strips, concentrated in a small portion of the field with limited extrapolation to the field scale. A spatiotemporal normalized ratio (STNR) methodology is proposed to evaluate the impact of VRA compared with UA for on-farm trials at the field scale. It incorporates a base year in which the whole plot is managed with UA and consecutive years in which half of the plot is managed with UA and the other half is managed with VRA. Additionally, a novel normalized relative comparison index (NRCI) is presented where the ratios of VRA/UA sub-plots are compared between a base year and a consecutive year, for any measured parameter. The NRCI determines the impact of VRA on variability using statistical measures of dispersion (variability measures) and on performance with statistical measures of central tendency (performance measures). Variability measures with NRCI values lower or higher than 1 indicate VRA management decreased or increased variability. Performance measures with NRCI lower or higher than 1 indicate subplot impairment or improvement, respectively due to VRA management. The methodology was demonstrated on a commercial drip irrigated peach orchard and a wine grape vineyard. NRCI results showed that VRA drip irrigation reduced water status in-field variability but did not necessarily increase yield. The benefits and limitations of the proposed design are discussed.

Irrigation Science

Precision irrigation can affect orchard water status and water productivity (WP). It is hypothesi... more Precision irrigation can affect orchard water status and water productivity (WP). It is hypothesized that crop water statusbased irrigation at the subfield scale can maintain tree water status according to targets, thereby increasing WP. Our objectives were to define a spatiotemporal decision support protocol for variable rate drip irrigation (SDSP-VRDI) in a well-watered peach orchard and to evaluate protocol efficiency on a subfield scale. Research was initiated during 2017 in a uniformly irrigated commercial peach orchard. In 2018, half the orchard was converted to SDSP-VRDI utilizing a model developed to study the relationship between stem water potential (SWP) and thermal image-based crop water stress index (CWSI). In 2019, the orchard's south subplot continued to be irrigated uniformly while its north subplot was managed according to SDSP-VRDI during the primary stage of fruit growth and the period of peak irrigation (stage III). The SDSP-VRDI included seven steps including calculation of the CWSI per management cell (MC) using thermal imagery. The CWSI was used to estimate SWP that was compared to a specified target range driving irrigation applied per MC based on FAO-56. The target range was reached in most MCs by applying MC-specific irrigation. Some specific MCs responded well to higher amounts of irrigation while others did not, as evident from relative yield, WP, and water cost efficiency data. Management downscaling from field to subfield scale appears to be beneficial and could advance precision irrigation management of complex orchard systems. Abbreviations CWSI Crop water stress index MC Management cell NDVI Normalized difference vegetation index NRCI Normalized relative comparison index PI Performance index SDSP Spatiotemporal decision support protocol SWP Stem water potential (MPa) UI Uniform irrigation VRDI Variable rate drip irrigation WP Water productivity (Mg m −3) * L. Katz

Journal of Architectural Education, 2022

Irrigation Science, 2022

Precision agriculture, 2022

PLOS ONE, 2022

Household water food and energy (WFE) expenditures, reflect respective survival needs for which t... more Household water food and energy (WFE) expenditures, reflect respective survival needs for which their resources and social welfare are inter-related. We developed a policy driven quantitative decision-making strategy (DMS) to address the domain geospatial entities’ (nodes or administrative districts) of the WFE nexus, assumed to be information linked across the domain nodal-network. As investment in one of the inter-dependent nexus components may cause unexpected shock to the others, we refer to the WFE normalized expenditures product (Volume) as representing the nexus holistic measure. Volume rate conforms to Boltzman entropy suggesting directed information from high to low Volume nodes. Our hypothesis of causality-driven directional information is exemplified by a sharp price increase in wheat and rice, for U.S. and Thailand respectively, that manifests its impact on the temporal trend of Israel’s administrative districts of the WFE expenditures. Welfare mass (WM) represents the n...

Journal of Insect Science, 2021

The construction of vehicular roads likely affects the distribution of natural resources. Althoug... more The construction of vehicular roads likely affects the distribution of natural resources. Although the effects of roads on different ecosystem aspects have been extensively studied, studies in arid and, particularly, in hyper-arid ecosystems are scarce. In drylands, where water is the main limiting factor, the effect of roads on the redistribution of water may have strong subsequent effects on the ecosystem, especially when roads cross natural water flow paths. To fill this knowledge gap, we studied the effects of a road that runs across a slope on the distribution of plants and animals in a hyper-arid environment. Changes in shrub cover, below and above the road, were quantified by remote sensing and image classification, while plant-associated arthropods were vacuum-sampled from shrub canopies and from open (inter-shrub) areas. We found that the spatial distribution of shrubs, a vital resource facilitating many other organisms, was affected by the road, with an increase in the shr...

Remote Sensing, 2021

Wine quality is the final outcome of the interactions within a vineyard between meteorological co... more Wine quality is the final outcome of the interactions within a vineyard between meteorological conditions, terrain and soil properties, plant physiology and numerous viticultural decisions, all of which are commonly summarized as the terroir effect. Associations between wine quality and a single soil or topographic factor are usually weak, but little information is available on the effect of terrain (elevation, aspect and slope) as a compound micro-terroir factor. We used the topographic wetness index (TWI) as a steady-state hydrologic and integrative measure to delineate management zones (MZs) within a vineyard and to study the interactions between vine vigor, water status and grape and wine quality. The study was conducted in a commercial 2.5-ha Vitis vinifera ‘Cabernet Sauvignon’ vineyard in Israel. Based on the TWI, the vineyard was divided into three MZs located along an elongate wadi that crosses the vineyard and bears water only in the rainy winter season. MZ1 was the most di...

Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 2021

GIScience & Remote Sensing, 2018

International Soil and Water Conservation Research, 2020

International Journal of Climatology, 2019

Mapping spatial and temporal variability of urban microclimate is pivotal for an accurate estimat... more Mapping spatial and temporal variability of urban microclimate is pivotal for an accurate estimation of the ever-increasing exposure of urbanized humanity to global warming. This particularly concerns cities in arid/semi-arid regions which cover two fifths of the global land area and are home to more than one third of the world's population. Focusing on the desert city of Be'er Sheva Israel, we investigate the spatial and temporal patterns of urban-rural and intra-urban temperature variability by means of satellite observation, vehicular traverse measurement, and computer simulation. Our study reveals a well-developed nocturnal canopy layer urban heat island in Be'er Sheva, particularly in the winter, but a weak diurnal cool island in the mid-morning. Near surface air temperature exhibits weak urban-rural and intra-urban differences during the daytime (<1 C), despite pronounced urban surface cool islands observed in satellite images. This phenomenon, also recorded in some other desert cities, is explained by the rapid increase in surface skin temperature of exposed desert soils (in the absence of vegetation or moisture) after sunrise, while urban surfaces are heated more slowly. The study highlights differences among the three methods used for describing urban temperature variability, each of which may have different applications in fields such as urban planning, climate change mitigation, and epidemiological research.

Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, 2020

Abstract The interactions between temperature, relative humidity, radiation, wind speed and their... more Abstract The interactions between temperature, relative humidity, radiation, wind speed and their effect on plant transpiration in the context of water consumption for irrigation purposes have been studied for over a century. Leaf area has also been established as an important factor affecting water consumption. We analyzed a multivariable time series composed of both meteorological and vegetative variables with a daily temporal resolution for the growing seasons of 2013–2016 for Vitis vinfera ‘Cabernet Sauvignon’ vineyards in the mountainous region in Israel. Time-series analysis of this data was used to characterize seasonal patterns affecting water consumption (ETc) of vines and to quantify interrelations between meteorological and vegetative factors affecting vine water consumption. Moreover, we applied a machine learning regression model to determine the relative influence of meteorological and vegetative factors on ETc during four growing seasons. Finally, we developed an ensemble model for temporally forecasting vine ETc for an additional season using a training dataset of multiple variables. Our findings show that decomposing the time-series dataset uncovered a wider variety of underlying temporal patterns, and enabled quantification of seasonal and daily relationships. Leaf area had a substantial impact on ETc and was found to have a relative influence ranging between 62 and 86% for the different growing seasons. Mean temperature was ranked second followed by minor effects of relative humidity, solar radiation and wind speed that were interchangeably ordered. The ensemble model produced reliable results, with cross validation coefficients ~ 0.9. Incorporating leaf area measurements into the regression model improved both the performance of the model and the training data correlation. Using time-series statistics to explore meteorological and vegetative temporal characteristics, patterns, interrelations and relative effect on evapotranspiration may facilitate the understanding of water consumption processes and assist in generating more effective and skillful irrigation models.

Computers and Electronics in Agriculture, 2019

Remote Sensing, 2018

Spectral-based vegetation indices (VI) have been shown to be good proxies of grapevine stem water... more Spectral-based vegetation indices (VI) have been shown to be good proxies of grapevine stem water potential (Ψstem), assisting in irrigation decision-making for commercial vineyards. However, VI-Ψstem correlations are mostly reported at the leaf or canopy scales, using proximal canopy-based sensors or very-high-spatial resolution images derived from sensors mounted on small airplanes or drones. Here, for the first time, we take advantage of high-spatial resolution (3-m) near-daily images acquired from Planet’s nano-satellite constellation to derive VI-Ψstem correlations at the vineyard scale. Weekly Ψstem was measured along the growing season of 2017 in six vines each in 81 commercial vineyards and in 60 pairs of grapevines in a 2.4 ha experimental vineyard in Israel. The Clip application programming interface (API), provided by Planet, and the Google Earth Engine platform were used to derive spatially continuous time series of four VIs—GNDVI, NDVI, EVI and SAVI—in the 82 vineyards....