Three students and graduates of the Lebanese University won research grants from the Research Innovation Fund (RIF) of “Arab Land Initiative” and its international partners, after presenting research papers related to the good management of land and its natural resources in the Arab world.

Among the 80 submissions received in July 2020 by the “Urban Training and Studies Institute” (UTI) in Cairo, 17 research papers were accepted, two of which were for current students and graduates of the Lebanese University.

Glory El-Khoury (2nd year Master in Natural Geography, Faculty of Letters & Human Sciences) submitted a paper on groundwater management entitled “Land use, Land cover changes and the link with the Groundwater Governance in “Nahr Al Jaouz” river basin”, under the supervision of Professor Jean-Albert Doumit from the Department of Geography.

Dr. Mario Al Sayah and Dr. Rita Der Sarkissian, graduates of the Faculty of Science and the National Council for Scientific Research (NCSR), submitted a joint research paper on the events of recent years in Lebanon and their impact on earth erosion entitled “A review of recent events in Lebanon (2011-2020) and their effect on national land degradation”, under the supervision of Professor Chadi Abdallah, Director of Research at CNRS-Remote Sensing Center.

The research competition aims to increase the information and empirical evidence on land-related issues in the region and foster the interest and engagement of students, young professionals and scholars in producing land-related research that contributes to serving environment and climate change SDGs.

Prior to the announcement of the results on 31 August 2020 and their detailed publication in September 2020, the participating research arbitration committees adopted several criteria, most notably the clarity and pertinence of the research objectives, soundness of the hypothesis, pertinence of the case studies, credibility of the methodology, validity of the references, innovation potential, and transferability of the expected results.

It is noteworthy that RIF cooperates with the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) and the “UN-Habitat for a better urban future”, with the financial support from the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany (BMZ).