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Dr Salem Gharbia

Jt Lecturer

Contact Details

Head of Department
Environmental Science

E: salem.gharbia@atu.ie
 
researcher

Biography

Dr. Salem S. Gharbia is the Head of Department of Environmental Science and a Principal Investigator at ATU Sligo. Water resources, climate change and integrated environmental systems modelling with Geographic Information System (GIS) are his main fields of interest. Dr. Gharbia worked for both academia and consultancy such as Jacobs Engineering as the environmental modeller who developed the GIS-based hydrological algorithms that were used in the flood risk assessment project for the Shannon River catchment (CFRAM project), the largest catchment in Ireland. Also, he worked for the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) as a water planning engineer managing many water and wastewater projects. On the academic side, he worked as a research assistant in the “Air quality mapping using a directional Land Use Regression (LUR) GIS-based model” which is an Irish EPA funded project coordinated by Trinity College Dublin. Also, he contributed to another Irish EPA funded project coordinated by Trinity College Dublin entitled “Desludging Rates and Mechanisms for Domestic Wastewater Treatment System Sludges in Ireland”. Dr Gharbia worked as a Post-Doc for three years in the Spatial Dynamics Lab at University College Dublin. As part of Dr. Gharbia’s post-doctoral research at UCD, he worked on two projects: the iSCAPE project (www.iscapeproject.eu) and the project OPERANDUM - H2020-SC5-2016-2017. In the OPERANDUM project, Dr. Gharbia worked on tackling the flooding risks which resulted from the quick response to extreme precipitation which causes possible damage in urban areas. In the context of iSCAPE, he worked on the guidelines to promote passive methods for improving urban air quality under climate change conditions. Dr Gharbia works on the process of applying, monitoring and evaluation of different environmental interventions using and adapting low-cost and high-end sensing technology and numerical modelling. Dr Gharbia has an extensive background with over nine years of experience in the fields of environment, hydrology and water sciences, GIS, mathematical modelling, and statistics, adept in the use of decision support tools. He has a great ability to use programming languages, database packages and other software packages with advance knowledge in quantifying unstructured data to suit research requirements. He has excelled in all his studies, and he won many awards and grants including Trinity College's prestigious Ussher award for his PhD research.  His PhD developed an integrated modelling platform (GEO-CWB) to address and quantify future water vulnerability in large catchments. Dr. Gharbia is an expert in modelling, simulation and solution processes with novelty in developing solution algorithms using GIS platform. He teaches Water and Wastewater Treatment subjects in addition to Geographic Information System (GIS), Hydrology and Groundwater Modeling at undergraduate and graduate levels. Dr. Gharbia has over 35 research publications in the last four years, and he secured circa Euro 11M in research funding over the previous 5 years. Dr Gharbia is the leader of the H2020 SCORE project which has 28 international partners. 

Research Interests

Dr. Salem S. Gharbia is an Assistant Lecturer of Water and Environmental Engineering at IT Sligo. Water resources, climate change and integrated environmental systems modelling with Geographic Information System (GIS) are his main fields of interest. 

LIST OF PUBLICATIONS

Francesco Pilla, Bidroha Basu, Salem Gharbia, Panagiota Katsikouli. (2021). 3 - Pervasive sensing approaches for environmental pollution, In Environmental Contaminants, Monitoring Environmental Contaminants, Elsevier, Pages 57-71, ISSN 24055654, ISBN 9780444643353, https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-444-64335-3.00005-0.  

Gharbia, A.S., Gharbia, S.S., Zákányi, B., Tóth, M. and Szucs, P., 2021. Groundwater Quality Evaluation for Irrigation Suitable Using Geostatistical Algorithms.  

Gharbia, S.S., Gill, L., Johnston, P. and Pilla, F., 2020. GEO-CWB: GIS-Based Algorithms for Parametrising the Responses of Catchment Dynamic Water Balance Regarding Climate and Land Use Changes. Hydrology, 7(3), p.39.  

Ornella Salimbene, Salem S. Gharbia and Francesco Pilla, 2020. GIS-based integrated analysis for water resources vulnerability: a case study in the north-west of Italy. International Journal of Environmental Impacts, 3(3):260-271  

González, Óscar, Barberán, Víctor, Camprodon, Guillem, Gharbia, Salem, Stibe, Santa, Pilla, Francesco, Kumar, Prashant, Di Sabatino, Francesca, Drebs, Achim, Schaaf, Katinka, Adnan, Muhammad, Christian, Tilman, 2019. iSCAPE Citizen Science Workshops Data. doi:10.5281/zenodo.3570680

Pilla, F., Gharbia, S.S. and Lyons, R., 2019. How do households perceive flood-risk? The impact of flooding on the cost of accommodation in Dublin, Ireland. Science of the Total Environment, 650, pp.144-154.  

Salem S. Gharbia, Erika Brattich, Francesco Barbano, Manish Anand, John Gallagher, Sarah Middleton, Aonghus McNabola, Brian McManus, Brian Broderick, Sara Baldazzi, Francesca Di Nicola, Marco Deserti, Luca Torreggiani, Carla Barbieri, Vanes Poluzzi, Arianna Trentini, Dimitri Bacco, Beatrice Pulvirenti, Silvana Di Sabatino, Francesco Pilla, (2019). Report on deployment of neighborhood level interventions. Report for the iSCAPE - Improving the Smart Control of Air Pollution in Europe (H2020-SC5-04-2015).

Silvana Di Sabatino, Erika Brattich, Francesco Barbano, Salem Gharbia, Francesco Pilla, KV Abhijith, Prashant Kumar, Achim Drebs Luca Torreggiani, Carla Barbieri, (2019). Air pollution and meteorology monitoring report. Report for the iSCAPE - Improving the Smart Control of Air Pollution in Europe (H2020-SC5-04-2015).

Alrayess, H., Gharbia, S., Beden, N. And Keskin, A.U., 2018. Using Machine Learning Techniques and Deep Learning in Forecasting the Hydroelectric Power Generation in Almus Dam, Turkey. Safety.  

Laurence Gill, Joanne Mac Mahon, Jan Knappe, Salem Gharbia and Francesco Pilla (2018). Desludging Rates and Mechanisms for Domestic Wastewater Treatment System Sludges in Ireland. (2016-W-DS-26) EPA Research Report.  

Gharbia, S.S., Smullen, T., Gill, L., Johnston, P. and Pilla, F., 2018. Spatially distributed potential evapotranspiration modeling and climate projections. Science of The Total Environment, 633, pp.571-592.

  Alrayess, H., Ülke, A. and Gharbia, S., Comparison of Different Techniques about Reservoir Capacity Calculation at Sami Soydam Sandalcık Dam. Celal Bayar Üniversitesi Fen Bilimleri Dergisi, 14(1), pp.23-29.
Valmassoi, A., Gharbia, S., Stibe, Di Sabatino, S., Kumar P. and Pilla, F., 2018. Future Impacts of the Reforestation Policy on the atmospheric parameters in Ireland: a sensitivity study including heat discomfort impacts on humans and livestock. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing.  

Salem S. Gharbia, Abhijith K. V., Aakash C. Rai, Andreas N. Skouloudis, Erika Brattich, Athanasios Votsis, Väinö Nurmi, Carl Fortelius, Kirsti Jylhä, Achim Drebs, Gaia Papini, Francesco Matacchiera, Arianna Valmassoi, Alessio Brunetti, Francesco Barbano, Francesco Pilla, Silvana Di Sabatino, Beatrice Pulvirenti, Prashant Kumar and Guillem Camprodon, 2017. Report on Footprint of Passive Control Systems. Report for the iSCAPE - Improving the Smart Control of Air Pollution in Europe (H2020-SC5-04-2015).  

Salem S. Gharbia, Abhijith K. V., Hanna C. Schmitt, Andreas N. Skouloudis, Christina Gollmann, Britta Weißer, Florian Hurth, Madeleine Kirstein, Francesco Pilla, Stefan Greiving and Prashant Kumar, 2017. Guidelines to Promote Passive Methods for Improving Urban Air Quality in Climate Change Scenarios. Report for the iSCAPE - Improving the Smart Control of Air Pollution in Europe (H2020-SC5-04-2015).  

Salem S. Gharbia, Haytham Assem, Paul Johnston, Laurence Gill, Gabor Makrai, Francesco Pilla (2017). Urban Water Flow and Water Level Prediction based on Deep Learning. ECML-PKDD.   Valmassoi, A.,

Gharbia, S., Stibe, S., Di Sabatino, S. and Pilla, F., 2017. Future Impacts of the Reforestation Policy on the atmospheric parameters: a sensitivity study over Ireland. Procedia Computer Science, 109, pp.367-375.  

Gharbia Salem S., Laurence Gill, Paul Johnston, Francesco Pilla. “Future water vulnerability in Ireland: an integrated water resources, climate and land use changes model”, National Hydrology Conference, Athlone, Co. Westmeath, Ireland, 2016.  

Gharbia Salem S., Sara Abd Alfatah, Laurence Gill, Paul Johnston, and Francesco Pilla. "Land use scenarios and projections simulation using an integrated GIS cellular automata algorithms." Modeling Earth Systems and Environment 2, no. 3 (2016): 151.  

Gharbia Salem S, Adnan Aish,  Thaer Abushbak, Ghassan Qishawi, Izz Al- Shawa, Abdalkarim Gharbia, Martina Zelenakova, Laurence Gill, Francesco Pilla. “Evaluation of wastewater post-treatment options for reuse purposes in the agricultural sector under rural development conditions”, Journal of Water Process Engineering, 02/2016; 214:1-12. DOI:10.1016/j.jwpe.2015.12.003.  

Gharbia, Salem S., Laurence Gill, Paul Johnston, and Francesco Pilla. "Multi-GCM ensembles performance for climate projection on a GIS platform." Modeling Earth Systems and Environment 2, no. 2 (2016): 1-21.  

Gharbia Salem S, Owen Naughton, Vincent Farrelly, Ronan Lyons, Francesco Pilla. “Attitudes to systemic risk: the impact of flood risk on the housing market in Dublin”, IEEE, 2016.  

Gharbia, Abdalkarim S., Salem S. Gharbia, Thaer Abushbak, Hisham Wafi, Adnan Aish, Martina Zelenakova, and Francesco Pilla. "Groundwater Quality Evaluation Using GIS-Based Geostatistical Algorithms." Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection 4, no. 02 (2016): 89.  

Gharbia Salem S, Laurence Gill, Paul Johnston, Francesco Pilla. “Using GIS-Based Algorithms for GCMs’ Performance Evaluation”, IEEE, 2016.  

Gharbia Salem S, Laurence Gill, Paul Johnston, Francesco Pilla. “Trans-boundary European River’s Long-term Changes Analysis for Water Level and Streamflow Regime”, 42nd IAH Congress (AQUA2015), Rome, Italy, 2015.  

Gharbia Salem S., Laurence Gill, Paul Johnston, Francesco Pilla. “GEO-CWB: a Dynamic Water Balance Tool for Catchment Water Management”, 5th International Multidisciplinary Conference on Hydrology and Ecology (HydroEco2015), Vienna, Austria, 2015.  

Gharbia Salem S., Adnan Aish, Francesco Pilla, Modelling Potential Impacts of Climate Change on Groundwater of the Gaza Coastal Aquifer from Ensemble of Global Climate Model Projections, Civil and Environmental Research, 7, (2), 2015.  

Gharbia Salem S., Adnan Aish, Francesco Pilla, Impacts of Climate Change on a Spatially Distributed Water Balance in the Gaza Strip, Palestine, Journal of Environment and Earth Science, 5, (4), 2015.  

Gharbia Salem S., Adnan Aish, Francesco Pilla, Abdalkarim S. Gharbia, Projection of Future Climate by Multi-Model Median Approach under GIS Environment along the Gaza Strip, Palestine, Journal of Environment and Earth Science, 5, (3), 2015.  

Gharbia Salem S., Francesco Pilla, Abdalkarim S. Gharbia. “Correlating Biochemical and Chemical Oxygen Demand of Influents And Effluents - a Case Study of Selected Wastewater Treatment Plants in the Gaza Strip, Palestine“, Conference paper in XVth IWRA World Water Congress, Edinburgh, Scotland, 2015.  
Gharbia Salem S., Francesco Pilla, Abdalkarim S. Gharbia. “Potential Effects of Climate Change on Groundwater Recharge - a Case Study of the Gaza Strip, Palestine“, Conference paper in XVth IWRA World Water Congress, Edinburgh, Scotland, 2015.  

Gharbia Salem S., Adnan Aish. “Future Changes in Climate Projected by a Multi-Model Ensemble Over The Gaza Strip, Palestine”, Palestinian Conference on Graduate Student Research in Natural and Applied Sciences at Birzeit University, Palestine, 2014.  

Gharbia Salem S., Adnan Aish. Impacts of Climate Change on Groundwater of the Gaza Coastal Aquifer Using GIS and MODFLOW. LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing, Germany, 2013.  

Gharbia Salem S., Adnan Aish. Climate Changes projection for the Gaza Strip Using GIS., International Conference: GIS software locally and globally at University of Applied Sciences, Palestine, 2013.

Peer Reviewed Journals

  Year Publication
(2019) 'How do households perceive flood-risk? The impact of flooding on the cost of accommodation in Dublin, Ireland'
Pilla, Francesco and Gharbia, Salem S and Lyons, Ronan (2019) 'How do households perceive flood-risk? The impact of flooding on the cost of accommodation in Dublin, Ireland'. Science of The Total Environment, 650 :144-154 [Details]
(2018) 'Future Impacts of the Reforestation Policy on the atmospheric parameters in Ireland: a sensitivity study including heat discomfort impacts on humans and livestock'
Valmassoi, A and Gharbia, S and Disabatino, S and Kumar, Prashant and Pilla, F (2018) 'Future Impacts of the Reforestation Policy on the atmospheric parameters in Ireland: a sensitivity study including heat discomfort impacts on humans and livestock'. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, [Details]
(2018) 'Spatially distributed potential evapotranspiration modeling and climate projections'
Gharbia, S.S. and Smullen, T. and Gill, L. and Johnston, P. and Pilla, F. (2018) 'Spatially distributed potential evapotranspiration modeling and climate projections'. Science of the Total Environment, 633 [DOI] [Details]
(2018) 'USING MACHINE LEARNING TECHNIQUES AND DEEP LEARNING IN FORECASTING THE HYDROELECTRIC POWER GENERATION IN ALMUS DAM, TURKEY'
ALRAYESS, Hesham and GHARBIA, Salem and BEDEN, Neslihan and KESK$backslash$.IN, Asli ULKE (2018) 'USING MACHINE LEARNING TECHNIQUES AND DEEP LEARNING IN FORECASTING THE HYDROELECTRIC POWER GENERATION IN ALMUS DAM, TURKEY'. SAFETY, [Details]
(2016) 'Evaluation of wastewater post-treatment options for reuse purposes in the agricultural sector under rural development conditions'
Gharbia, S.S. and Aish, A. and Abushbak, T. and Qishawi, G. and Shawa, I.A. and Gharbia, A. and Zelenakova, M. and Gill, L. and Pilla, F. (2016) 'Evaluation of wastewater post-treatment options for reuse purposes in the agricultural sector under rural development conditions'. Journal of Water Process Engineering, 9 [DOI] [Details]
(2016) 'Groundwater quality evaluation using GIS based geostatistical algorithms'
Gharbia, Abdalkarim S and Gharbia, Salem S and Abushbak, Thaer and Wafi, Hisham and Aish, Adnan and Zelenakova, Martina and Pilla, Francesco (2016) 'Groundwater quality evaluation using GIS based geostatistical algorithms'. Journal of Geoscience and Environment Protection, 4 (02) [Details]
(2016) 'Land use scenarios and projections simulation using an integrated GIS cellular automata algorithms'
Gharbia, Salem S and Alfatah, Sara Abd and Gill, Laurence and Johnston, Paul and Pilla, Francesco (2016) 'Land use scenarios and projections simulation using an integrated GIS cellular automata algorithms'. Modeling Earth Systems and Environment, 2 (3) [Details]
(2016) 'Multi-GCM ensembles performance for climate projection on a GIS platform'
Gharbia, Salem S and Gill, Laurence and Johnston, Paul and Pilla, Francesco (2016) 'Multi-GCM ensembles performance for climate projection on a GIS platform'. Modeling Earth Systems and Environment, 2 (2) [Details]
(2015) 'Projection of Future Climate by Multi-Model Median Approach under GIS Environment along the Gaza Strip, Palestine'
Gharbia, Salem S and Aish, Adnan and Pilla, Francesco and Gharbia, Abdalkarim S (2015) 'Projection of Future Climate by Multi-Model Median Approach under GIS Environment along the Gaza Strip, Palestine'. Journal of Environment and Earth Science, 5 :94-104 [Details]
(2015) 'Impacts of climate change on a spatially distributed water balance in the Gaza Strip, Palestine'
Gharbia, Salem S and Aish, Adnan and Pilla, Francesco (2015) 'Impacts of climate change on a spatially distributed water balance in the Gaza Strip, Palestine'. Journal of Environment and Earth Science, 5 :76-91 [Details]
(2015) 'Modelling potential impacts of climate change on groundwater of the Gaza coastal aquifer from ensemble of global climate model projections'
Gharbia, Salem S and Aish, Adnan and Pilla, Francesco (2015) 'Modelling potential impacts of climate change on groundwater of the Gaza coastal aquifer from ensemble of global climate model projections'. Civil and Environmental Research, 7 :44-60 [Details]

Conference Publications

  Year Publication
(2017) Procedia Computer Science
Valmassoi, A. and Gharbia, S. and Stibe, S. and Di Sabatino (2017) Future Impacts of the Reforestation Policy on the amospheric parameters: A sensitivity study over Ireland Procedia Computer Science [Details]
(2017) Procedia Computer Science
Valmassoi, Arianna and Gharbia, Salem and Stibe, Santa and Di Sabatino (2017) Future Impacts of the Reforestation Policy on the amospheric parameters: A sensitivity study over Ireland Procedia Computer Science , pp.367-375 [Details]
(2017) Joint European Conference on Machine Learning and Knowledge Discovery in Databases
Assem, Haytham and Ghariba, Salem and Makrai, Gabor and Johnston, Paul and Gill, Laurence and Pilla, Francesco (2017) Urban Water Flow and Water Level Prediction Based on Deep Learning Joint European Conference on Machine Learning and Knowledge Discovery in Databases , pp.317-329 [Details]
(2016) Proceedings of the 18th Mediterranean Electrotechnical Conference: Intelligent and Efficient Technologies and Services for the Citizen, MELECON 2016
Gharbia, S.S. and Naughton, O. and Farrelly, V. and Lyons, R. and Pilla, F. (2016) Attitudes to systemic risk: The impact of flood risk on the housing market in Dublin Proceedings of the 18th Mediterranean Electrotechnical Conference: Intelligent and Efficient Technologies and Services for the Citizen, MELECON 2016 [Details]
(2016) 2016 18th Mediterranean Electrotechnical Conference (MELECON)
Gharbia, Salem S. and Johnston, Paul and Gill, Laurence and Pilla, Francesco (2016) Using GIS based algorithms for GCMs' performance evaluation 2016 18th Mediterranean Electrotechnical Conference (MELECON) , pp.1-6 [Details]
(2016) National Hydrology Conference, Athlone, Co. Roscommon, 15 November 2016
Gharbia, Salem and Gill, Laurence and Johnston, Paul and Pilla, Francesco (2016) Future Water Vulnerability in Ireland: An Integrated Water Resources, Climate and Land Use Changes Model National Hydrology Conference, Athlone, Co. Roscommon, 15 November 2016 [Details]
(2015) 42nd IAH Congress (AQUA2015), At Rome, Italy
Gharbia, Salem S and Gill, Laurence and Johnston, Paul and Pilla, Francesco (2015) Trans-boundary European River¿s Long-term Changes Analysis for Water Level and Streamflow Regime 42nd IAH Congress (AQUA2015), At Rome, Italy [Details]
(2015) 5th International Multidisciplinary Conference on Hydrology and Ecology (HydroEco2015), At Vienna, Austria
Gharbia, Salem S and Gill, Laurence and Johnston, Paul and Pilla, Francesco (2015) GEO-CWB: a Dynamic Water Balance Tool for Catchment Water Management 5th International Multidisciplinary Conference on Hydrology and Ecology (HydroEco2015), At Vienna, Austria [Details]
(2015) XVth IWRA World Water Congress, At Edinburgh, Scotland
Gharbia, Salem S and Pilla, Francesco and Gharbia, Abdalkarim S (2015) Correlating Biochemical and Chemical Oxygen Demand of Influents And Effluents - a Case Study of Selected Wastewater Treatment Plants in the Gaza Strip, Palestine XVth IWRA World Water Congress, At Edinburgh, Scotland [Details]
(2014) Palestinian Conference for Graduate Student Research in Natural and Applied Sciences, Ramallah, Palestine
Gharbia, Salem S and Aish, Adnan (2014) Future Changes in Climate Projected by a Multi-Model Ensemble Over The Gaza Strip, Palestine Palestinian Conference for Graduate Student Research in Natural and Applied Sciences, Ramallah, Palestine [Details]

Books

  Year Publication
(2013) Impacts of Climate Change on Groundwater of the Gaza Coastal Aquifer Using GIS and MODFLOW.
Salem Gharbia, Adnan Aish (2013) Impacts of Climate Change on Groundwater of the Gaza Coastal Aquifer Using GIS and MODFLOW. Germany: Lambert Academic Publishing. [Details]

Education

  Year Institution Qualification Subject
2017 Trinity College Dublin PhD Water Resources Engineering
2019 University College Dublin Post Graduate Diploma UCD Professional Diploma for Entrepreneurial Educators
2013 Institute of Water and Environment (IWE), Al-Azhar University MSc (With Distinction) Master of Science in Water and Environmental Sciences
2015 Trinity College Dublin Post Graduate Certificate Statistics
2011 Islamic University of Gaza BEng Bachelor’s Degree in civil engineering. (1st Class Hons)

Professional Associations

  Association Function From / To
International Water Association (IWA) Member /
Membership of the Palestinian Engineering Association CEng /
Engineers Ireland MIEI /
International Association of Hydrogeologists (IAH) Member /

Honours and Awards

  Year Title Awarding Body
2016 Erasmus + (Fit for Industry PhD Module) Trinity College Dublin
2014 Ussher Fellowship Award Trinity College Dublin
2017 COST Action TD1105 EuNetAir EU

Languages

  Language Reading Writing Speaking
Arabic Fluent Fluent Fluent
English Fluent Fluent Fluent

Teaching Interests

My teaching experience can be listed as follows:

Sligo Institute of Technology (A. Lecturer) (September 2019- Ongoing)
As part of my role at IT Sligo I am teaching several modules related to water and wastewater treatment and operations.  

University College Dublin (UCD) (Lecturer) (October 2016 – August 2019) Masters level (Department of Planning and Environmental Policy)
  • PEP 40100 - Geographic Information System (GIS).
Undergraduate level (Department of Planning and Environmental Policy)
  • PEP 10090 - Environmental Change and Policy
  Trinity College Dublin (TCD) (Teacher assistant) (September 2014 - October 2016) Undergraduate level (School of Engineering)
  • Geographic Information System (GIS)
  • 2E9 - Engineering Design module
  • Anlys 3 – Structural Analysis (Virtual Work Lab)
  • 1E9 - Engineering Design Drawing module (hand drawing and AutoCAD)
  • 1E10 - Engineering Design II
  • 1E7 - Bridge Model
Master level (Master of Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering) (Teacher assistant)
  • Geographic Information System (GIS)
  • Groundwater Modeling
Post Graduate Diploma in Project Management (Teaching assistant)
  • MS-Project lab
Jacobs Engineering (Lecturer)
  • MS-Project one-day training course