Residents’ Satisfaction Assessment of Outdoor Residential Spaces;A Local Study in an Urban Compact Form in Sana’a, Yemen—Winter Period

This paper studies the thermal performance of outdoor residential spaces in the old part—historical part—of Sana’a city in the winter period and its impact on the residents’ satisfaction who occupied the buildings which overlook these spaces and use them on a pedestrian comfort basis. The analysis was carried out through the results of field measurements which study the temperature, relative humidity, and the air movement inside the selected outdoor spaces in the period of winter (2 months) data recorded through the devices used and compared with those obtained from the General Authority of Meteorology and Aviation—Meteorology Sector. Despite the passage of years, the author remained occupied with the opinion of the people whose homes overlook those outdoors spaces and what is their opinion of their performance. Therefore, an assessment was conducted in November 2020 to know the opinion of the people about the performance of these outdoor spaces and to compare the results of the field measurements with the results of the assessment. The measurements were conducted by using data-loggers that spread in some outdoor spaces in 7 spaces in old city of Sana’a and in its modern extension during the winter period which is the time of concern of this work. The measurements showed that the outdoor residential spaces in the old city of Sana’a are represented an advantage for winter climate over that of the modern city, so the focus in this paper was on that outdoors with the question of the users of the outdoor spaces in the old city only to clarify their satisfaction with it and whether it has succeeded as well from their point of view. Results presented in this paper are important to consider the relationship between the climatical performance of outdoor spaces and the comfort of the residents in the urban environment and give implications for urban planners and architects to improve the climate-based design methodology towards sustainable developments.

Coastal environment of the past millennium recorded by a coastal dune in Fujian,China

Coastal dune is a common aeolian geomorphology in a sandy coast,which records the evolution process of the aeolian landscape system and reflects the complex interaction among land surface,atmosphere and ocean.Coast is a sensitive area to global climate change.Restricted by chronology,most previous researches in China focused only on the cause of formation of coastal dunes.In recent years,the development of optically stimulated luminescence （OSL） dating provides a good method and acts as a carrier for coastal dunes to paleoclimate and paleoenvironmental studies.In this study,we selected an aeolian dune at the Anshan archaeological site,Fujian,China as the research object based on field observations.For determining their sedimentary stages and the primary influencing factors,we used the OSL dating method to construct a chronological framework for the aeolian dune.In addition,the sizes of grains were analyzed for identifying factors influencing the winter monsoon during the Medieval Warm Period （MWP） and the Little Ice Age （LIA） in this area.The results showed that the deposition of the aeolian dune was closely related to variations in the winter monsoon intensity.The changes of the winter monsoon were similar to the tendency of the East Asian winter monsoon,although there were several sub-fluctuations.From an overall perspective,the winter monsoon was strengthened during the MWP （1050–1300） .The results of a power spectrum analysis showed that the intensity of the East Asian winter monsoon is correlated with sunspot activity.

Time budget and activity rhythm of wild Great Bustard in winter

Instantaneous scanning and focal animal sampling methods were used to record the behaviors of nine wild Great Bustards(Otis tarda)and their time budget from November 2004 to January 2005.The results indicated that foraging and resting time accounted for as high as 46.40%and 39.12%,respectively,while the rest of the behaviors,such as walking,alerting,preening and flying,only shared 6.83%,2.03%,2.64%and 1.84%,respectively.There were significant differences in foraging time,alert time and walking time between males and females(P<0.05).The preening and flying were closely related to males(Pearson’s correlation,r=0.932),and it was similar for resting and walking in females(Pearson’s correlation,r=0.716).Resting occurred mainly at dawn and dusk,and foraging appeared mostly from 9:30 to 11:30 and from 14:30 to 16:30.Non-parameter testing demonstrates that time budget among resting,flying and others in two temperature intervals(>−5 and℃≤−5)℃was significantly different.