The cities of Saudi Arabia are among the most gender segregated in the world. In recent years the Saudi government has felt increasing international pressure to offer greater roles for women in ...society. Implicit in these calls for reform, however, is an assumption that the only "real" society is male society. Little consideration has been given to the rapidly evolving activities within women's spaces. This book joins young urban women in their daily lives—in the workplace, on the female university campus, at the mall—to show how these women are transforming Saudi cities from within and creating their own urban, professional, consumerist lifestyles. As young Saudi women are emerging as an increasingly visible social group, they are shaping new social norms. Their shared urban spaces offer women the opportunity to shed certain constraints and imagine themselves in new roles. But to feel included in this peer group, women must adhere to new constraints: to be sophisticated, fashionable, feminine, and modern. The position of "other" women—poor, rural, or non-Saudi women—is increasingly marginalized. While young urban women may embody the image of a "reformed" Saudi nation, the reform project ultimately remains incomplete, drawing new hierarchies and lines of exclusion among women.
Mohammed bin Salman. A monarch-to-be without scruples? Or a visionary seeking a path to global power? A social reformer determined to bring his country into the twenty-first century? Or just another ...brutal dictator? A leader on the road to greatness, or one destined to follow in the footsteps of Icarus? Veteran Washington Post foreign correspondent David Ottaway draws on more than a half-century of observation and reporting to shed light on these conundrums at the heart of any attempt to understand Saudi Arabia--and the man who is poised to rule the country for decades to come.
In saline soils, the spectral reflectance of either salt features at the surface or of vegetation that was negatively affected by salt varies with different salinity levels. Thus, several indices for ...vegetation and soil salinity have been developed. This study was conducted to assess the soil salinity levels in the Al-Hassa Oasis, which is dominated by date palm vegetation, in the eastern province of Saudi Arabia. Ground and remote sensing data were used to determine if any existing vegetation and soil salinity indices could be used to assess the soil salinity of communities vegetated with date palm. A systematic regular grid-sampling approach was used to collect a total of 149 composite soil samples from the study area. Thirteen broadband indices, which encompassed vegetation and soil salinity indices, were extracted from IKONOS satellite images. The predictive power of these indices for soil salinity was examined. The study area was dominated by areas of high salinity. Among the investigated indices, the Soil-Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI), Normalized Differential Salinity Index (NDSI) and Salinity Index (SI-T) yielded the best results for assessing the soil salinity of cultivated lands with dense and uniform vegetation. In contrast, the NDSI and SI-T exhibited the highest significant correlation with salinity for less densely vegetated lands and bare soils. Generally, the soil salinity in the areas that were dominated by date palms was successfully assessed by broadband vegetation and soil salinity indices that were extracted from the IKONOS satellite images.
•Assessing soil salinity in a date palm dominated region using vegetation and soil salinity indices, extracted from IKONOS satellite images.•The SAVI, NDSI and SI-T indices were the most useful indices.•The NDSI and SI-T indices works well in areas with low vegetation cover to assess soil salinity.•The SAVI index, yield better results for assessing soil salinity in densely vegetated areas.
The Neom mega-project area is located on the northwestern Arabian Plate and is associated with the Red Sea divergence and the Gulf of Aqaba-Dead Sea transform boundary. The study area is controlled ...by numerous major regional tectonic features including the Red Sea, Gulf of Suez, the Gulf of Aqaba-Dead Sea fault system, and a large number of recorded earthquakes. Evaluation of the tectonic framework of the Neom mega-project is important because of its economic and developmental significance. Here, geological, geophysical, field investigation, and seismological data were integrated to achieve these aims. The sinistral strike-slip regime of the study area involves extensional structures including normal faults and horizontal shear zones of vertical planes. In the Aqaba-Dead Sea faults, the left-lateral transform fault system is sharply expressed along the Wadi courses cutting into Proterozoic igneous and metamorphic rocks. The historical and instrumental seismicity data collected and processed illustrates a good association with the general tectonic trends affecting the Neom area. Moreover, the Gulf of Aqaba region remains the most active seismotectonic source zone affecting northwest Saudi Arabia and the Gulf of Aqaba region, with three big earthquake swarms recorded in 1983, 1993, and 1995.
Will Saudi Arabia join the democratic wave in the Middle East? The uprisings and revolutions of 2011 do not, yet, seem to have affected the stability of the House of Saud, which remains secretive, ...highly repressive and propped up by the West. The Islamic Utopia uses a range of sources including first-hand reporting and recently released WikiLeaks documents to examine Saudi Arabia in the decade after the 9/11 attacks, when King Abdullah’s 'reform' agenda took centre stage in public debate. It considers Saudi claims of 'exemption' from the democratic demands of the Arab Spring. Andrew Hammond argues that for too long Western media and governments have accepted Saudi leaders' claims to be a buttress against jihadist Islam and that a new policy is needed towards the House of Saud.
Since the dawn of the oil era, cities in Saudi Arabia have witnessed rapid growth and profound societal changes. As a response to foreign architectural solutions and the increasing popularity of ...Western lifestyles, a distinct style of architecture and urban planning has emerged. Characterised by an emphasis on privacy, expressed through high enclosures, gates, blinds, and tinted windows, 'New Islamic Urbanism' constitutes for some an important element of piety. For others, it enables alternative ways of life, indulgence in banned social practices, and the formation of both publics and counterpublics. Tracing the emergence of 'New Islamic Urbanism', this book sheds light on the changing conceptions of public and private space, in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, in the Saudi city of Jeddah. It challenges the widespread assumption that the public sphere is exclusively male in Muslim contexts such as Saudi Arabia, where women's public visibility is limited by the veil and strict rules of gender segregation. Showing that the rigid segregation regime for which the country is known serves to constrain the movements of men and women alike, Stefan Maneval provides a nuanced account of the negotiation of public and private spaces in Saudi Arabia.
The fifth in the CAIW series, the title draws on the 50 years of experience of Cambridge (UK)-based World of Information. Few countries have experienced such rapid and comprehensive change as Saudi ...Arabia. This title explains how and why.
