Research Reports and Creative Productions
2025-2026
H2O – Heat-Health Outdoors: A personalized Heat-Health Risk Assessment System
Heat is a growing major health risk worldwide due to global warming, temperature extremes, urbanisation, and aging populations. According to the IPCC 6th Assessment Report, climate change is projected to significantly increase population exposure to heatwaves and heat-related morbidity and mortality. The H2O project is a mobile phone-based human biometeorology framework that implements a Heat Exposure Assessment for Resilience & Thermal comfort (HEART) System designed to provide element (person) specific assessment of the potential heat impact on human health and well-being in real time and provide warnings and alerts of the potential heat risks of the hot weather.
This manual, produced by AD Ports Group and NYUAD, is a 70-page best practices guidelines document for regional stakeholders to enhance sustainable marine development efforts. It highlights the importance of coral reefs and explores pressures facing Arabian Gulf reefs, then examines the impact mitigation hierarchy and provides data and case studies of unanticipated risks and vulnerabilities inherent in coral relocation. The remainder of the document outlines current best practices for coral relocation, covering the planning to operational phases and incorporating considerations of the Gulf’s unique environmental context. It then describes the critically important post-relocation monitoring phase, which is necessary to measure success and inform future programmes with lessons learned.
Bracing for the Heat: Ensuring Safety During a Scorching Summer in the Gulf
The Arabian Peninsula is expected to face extreme heat this summer, with forecasts predicting record-breaking temperatures across the Gulf, including Makkah and Madinah during the Hajj season. According to the WHO, heatwaves pose serious risks to human health, disproportionately affecting vulnerable populations such as the elderly, children, and outdoor workers. Recent global data shows a worrying rise in temperatures, with March and April 2025 among the hottest on record, and seasonal forecasts suggest a high probability of temperatures exceeding the 70th and 80th percentiles across the region. Authorities and individuals are urged to take preventive measures, especially during Hajj, to mitigate health risks and ensure community safety.
ICRS signs on to letter to support US science
In February 2025, the International Coral Reef Society was approached by Dr. David Schiffman, whose work on sharks is well-known to many in the coral reef community. Working with the Union of Concerned Scientists, Dr. Shiffman was preparing a letter to call on the US Congress to support science in the United States. The ICRS officers, including John Burt, and councilors voted to sign on in support of the letter, reprinted in part here.
Sea Ice RAP: Random Analog Prediction of Arctic Sea Ice Extent
Francesco Paparella, jointly with Faiq Raees, created software that uses a new data-driven algorithm to perform forecasts of Arctic sea ice extent on seasonal scales. The Sea Ice RAP algorithm is similar in nature to AI-driven algorithms, but it leverages new advances in the statistics of functional data to bring about several improvements and advantages vs. typical AI forecasting algorithms.
2024-2025
The public data dashboard provides real-time environmental monitoring of air and water quality, heat indices, and oceanographic conditions across the UAE.
Probing the depths: NYU Abu Dhabi collaborates with OceanX for marine research on the UAE’s coasts
Select groups from the marine science community of the UAE embarked on a groundbreaking collaboration onboard the OceanXplorer, a renowned oceanographic vessel, to conduct research in the UAE’s waters. Three projects led by Mubadala ACCESS were selected from proposals, each aiming to uncover the secrets of the region’s marine ecosystems.
The BenthoPro is a custom cradle, created by Oliver Ferrell, to hold a GoPro camera in a fixed position on a 1/2” PVC pipe quadrat array, primarily used for benthic marine monitoring surveys. The BenthoPro has been implemented as a standardized Mubadala ACCESS marine survey tool across the region and parts of Malaysia.