Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Remote Sensing, Spatial Modeling, and Data Mining for urban and environmental analysis and planning. Some of my recent research has focused on mapping urban land cover (green space, impervious surfaces, etc.) and monitoring forest health using fine resolution satellite imagery.
Ph.D. in Geosciences, Florida Atlantic University, USA (2012).
M.A. in Geography, Florida Atlantic University, USA (2007).
Assessing heat-related health risks is important for sustainable urban development. Although fine-scale information (e.g., at the community/neighborhood or city block level) is ideal for identifying and mitigating these risks, previous studies have preferred to work at the administrative unit level. High-resolution Local Climate Zone (LCZ) maps, i...
The response of land surface phenology (LSP) to the urban heat island effect (UHI) is a useful biological indicator for understanding how vegetated ecosystems will be affected by future climate warming. However, vegetation cover in rural areas is often dominated by cultivated land, whose phenological timing is considerably influenced by...
More than 90 systematic reviews have been conducted on the topic of nature-based solutions for climate change adaptation (NBS-CCA). These prior reviews, however, are scattered across more than 45 different peer-reviewed journals and gray literature sources, making it difficult to follow all of the knowledge generated and remaining research gaps. In...
Detailed Land-Use and Land-Cover (LULC) information is of pivotal importance in, e.g., urban/rural planning, disaster management, and climate change adaptation. Recently, Deep Learning (DL) has emerged as a paradigm shift for LULC classification. To date, little research has focused on using DL methods for LULC mapping in semi-arid regions, and...
Aq’Qala county has been categorized as a high flood-prone area in Iran, and faced many major flood events in last two decades (e.g. in 2001, 2002, 2007, 2012, 2017, and 2019). The main aim of the current study is to produce and validate flood vulnerability rate (FVR) maps of this area relying on geospatial data. Vulnerability criteria were...
Understanding how biophysical and biochemical variables contribute to the spectral characteristics of vegetation canopies is critical for their monitoring. Quantifying these contributions, however, remains difficult due to extraneous factors such as the spectral variability of canopy background materials, including soil/crop-residue moisture, soil...
Climate change and overpopulation have led to an increase in water demands worldwide. As a result, land subsidence due to groundwater extraction and water level decline is causing damage to communities in arid and semiarid regions. The agricultural plain of Samalghan in Iran has recently experienced wide areas of land subsidence, which is...
The study evaluates the impacts of India’s COVID-19 lockdown and unlocking periods on
the country’s ambient air quality. India experienced three strictly enforced lockdowns followed by
unlocking periods where economic and social restrictions were gradually lifted. We have examined
the in situ and satellite data of NO2 emissions for several...
Planning for a sustainable future involves understanding the past and present problems
associated with urban centers. Rapid urbanization has caused significant adverse impacts on the
environment and natural resources. In cities, one such impact is the unsettling urban growth, resulting
in the urban heat island (UHI) effect, which causes...
Forest ecosystems play an indispensable role in addressing various pressing sustainability and social-ecological challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss. However, global forest loss has been, and still is today, an important issue. Here, based on spatially explicit data, we show that over the past 60 years (1960–2019), the global...
