Jumana G N Hussary

PhD Candidate

Kyushu University

Jumana Hussary, a Ph.D. candidate majoring in Geotechnical Engineering at Kyushu University, Japan. Recently received the 2021 Student’s Award of Excellence by the Japanese Geotechnical Society. I have had the opportunity to study abroad throughout my academic journey. Starting with my Bachelor’s at the American University of Madaba, Jordan, where I ranked 1st at the university level (2017). I was awarded the MEXT scholarship to pursue my higher education in Japan (2018). I got my Master’s degree from Kyushu University (2020) and successfully regranted the scholarship for my Ph.D. My research deals with unsaturated soils. It mainly focuses on studying the process and the mechanism of water evaporation from soil profiles. Ultimately, my research aims at finding sustainable innovations to combat droughts and desertification in drylands from a geotechnical engineering perspective. Recent results were published in 3 reviewed journal papers and were discussed at several national and international conferences. 

Micro-scale Study on the Actual Evaporation to Combat Desertification using Soil Covers

Drylands worldwide cover over 41% of the Earth’s surface. Climate change and severe arid conditions are causing devastating impacts on soils in such regions, leading to desertification and water scarcity. A considerable need to find innovative solutions to avert soil degradation and droughts is rising in our century. Among the significant soil-water fluxes in drylands, evaporation is considered the dominant, where water transports from the soil pores into the atmosphere. Actual evaporation, evaporation from unsaturated soils, is a complicated process divided into three stages that differ in their evaporation rates due to the transposition between liquid and vapor water transport through the soil pores. In the literature, the prediction of evaporation rates was mainly based on macro-scale analysis. However, in our research, we believe that the process is more complicated and involves a group of micro-mechanisms that need to be investigated and then reflected through a macro-scale evaluation. Therefore, the actual evaporation is currently being studied through experimental model testing, including high-resolution image analysis, analytical and numerical analysis to accurately predict the evaporation rates and water loss. So far, a comprehensive and robust index deduced from the pore properties of the soil has been proposed. This index was confirmed to be a reliable parameter when used in theoretical diffusion laws to predict vapor fluxes. Moreover, the new research findings are being used in developing an environment-friendly soil cover system that reduces water evaporation and maximizes water storage in drylands.