Doctor in land management, environmental sciences and geography, with an expertise in land degradation, GIS and remote sensing. Mario J. Al Sayah’s research focuses mainly on:
- The Land Degradation Neutrality (LDN) concept, its development, and linkage with environmental processes.
- Climate change in Mediterranean and European contexts.
- Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) and sustainable development.
Current Project
As of January 2021, Mario Al Sayah joined HM&Co – Ecole des Ponts ParisTech on a Postdoc position as part of the LIFE ARTISAN (Increasing the Resilience of Territories to Climate Change by Encouraging Adaptive Nature-based Solutions) project. ARTISAN is coordinated by the French Office of Biodiversity (OFB), and intends to support the national plan for adaptation to climate change (PNACC). The Postdoc entitled “Valuation of the eco-systemic services of Nature-based Solutions in research and teaching” articulates around two large axes. Main activities include R&D and teaching tasks. R&D efforts are concentrated on the enhancement of scientific knowledge related to Nature-Based Adaptation Solutions – NBAS by drawing up a scientific inventory on current knowledge, and identifying future research needs. Regarding the teaching axis, efforts are concentrated on the diagnosis of existing modules, formations and resources to draw up a panorama of the current offer, and to eventually propose and develop related syllabi.
Background
Joint doctorate in land management, environmental sciences and geography from the University of Orléans, CNRS-L and the Lebanese University (2020) within the CNRS-L, AUF, LU doctoral scholarship program. Worked from 2015-2020 in the National Center for Remote Sensing of the Lebanese National Center for Scientific Research as a research assistant, GIS technician, and field investigator on various projects of different themes, namely: land use and land cover dynamics, remote sensing, and disaster risk reduction. In 2020, Mario led a project titled “A review of recent events in Lebanon (2011-2020) and their effect on national land degradation” financed by a research grant awarded by the Urban Training and Studies Institute (UTI/HBRC) in collaboration with the Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) and the UN-Habitat, with the financial support of the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany (BMZ).
Publications
Journal articles
▪ Al Sayah, M.J., Abdallah, C., Khouri, M., Nedjai, R., Darwish, T., 2021. On the use of the Land Degradation Neutrality concept in Mediterranean watersheds for land restoration and erosion counteraction. Journal of Arid Environments. 188, 104465. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaridenv.2021.104465
▪ Al Sayah, M.J., Abdallah, C., Khouri, M., Nedjai, R., Darwich, T., 2021. A framework for climate change assessment in Mediterranean data-sparse watersheds using remote sensing and ARIMA modeling. Theoretical and Applied Climatology. 143, 639–658. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-020-03442-7
▪ Al Sayah, M.J., Nedjai, R., Abdallah, C., Khouri, M., 2020. On the use of remote sensing to map the proliferation of aquaculture ponds and to investigate their effect on local climate, perspectives from the Claise watershed, France. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment. 192 (5), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-020-08250-0
▪ Al Sayah, M.J., Abdallah, C., Khouri, M., Nedjai, R., and Darwich, T., 2019. Application of the LDN concept for quantification of the impact of land use and land cover changes on Mediterranean watersheds – Al Awali basin – Lebanon as a case study. Catena, 176 (May), 264–276. 10.1016/j.catena.2019.01.023
▪ Al Sayah, M.J., Nedjai, R., Kaffas, K., Abdallah, C., and Khouri, M., 2019. Assessing the Impact of Man–Made Ponds on Soil Erosion and Sediment Transport in Limnological Basins. Water, 11, 2526.
Book chapters
▪ Al Sayah, M.J., Nedjai, R., Abdallah, C., Khouri, M., Darwish, T., and Pinet, F., 2019. Evaluating differences of erosion patterns in natural and anthropogenic basins through scenario testing: A case study of the Claise, France and Nahr Ibrahim, Lebanon. In: V. Hrissanthou and K. Kaffas, eds. Soil Erosion. London, UK: InTech Open, 1–30.
Conference proceedings
▪ Al Sayah, M.J., Abdallah, C., Khouri, M., Nedjai, R., and Darwish, T., 2019a. Application of the Land Degradation Neutrality Concept in Mediterranean watersheds, a case study of Nahr Ibrahim, Lebanon. EGU – Geophysical Research Abstracts, 21 (2019–3510).
▪ Al Sayah, M.J., Abdallah, C., Khouri, M., Nedjai, R., and Darwish, T., 2019b. Investigating the Multi Efficiency of the LDN Concept in Mediterranean Watersheds, Lebanon as a Case Study. In: International Soil Congress 2019 – Successful transformation towards Land Degradation Neutrality: Future perspectives. Ankara, Turkey, 103–106.
▪ Al Sayah, M.J., Abdallah, C., Khouri, M., Nedjai, R., and Darwish, T., 2019c. Unlocking the Potential and Opportunities for LDN Integration in Lebanon. In: International Soil Congress 2019 – Successful transformation towards Land Degradation Neutrality: Future perspectives. Ankara, Turkey, 513–515.
Posters
▪ Al Sayah, M.J., Abdallah, C., Khouri, M., Nedjai, R., and Dariwsh, T. 2018. Role of GIS in the application of the Land Degradation Neutrality Concept (LDN). ESRI Lebanon GIS Day, November 2018.
Awards
▪ESRI Lebanon Best Map Award 2018
▪Prix d’Éxcellence Scientifique 2018 from the Lebanese University