Assessment of possible changes in crops water stress due to climate alteration is essential for agricultural planning, particularly in arid regions where water supply is the major challenge for agricultural development. This study aims to project climatic water availability (CWA) and crop water demand (CWD) to outline the possible future agricultural water stress of Iraq for different radiative concentration pathways (RCPs). The ensemble means of downscaled precipitation and temperature projections of the selected global climate models (GCMs) were used in a simple water balance model for this purpose. The modified Mann–Kendall (mMK) trend test was employed to estimate the tendency in CWA and the Wilcoxon rank test to evaluate CWD alteration in three future time horizons compared to the base period (1971–2000). The results revealed a decrease in CWA at a rate of up to −34/year during 2010–2099 for RCP8.5. The largest declination would be in summer (−29/year) and an insignificant decrease in winter (−1.3/year). The study also showed an increase in CWD of all major crops for all scenarios. The highest increase in CWD would be for summer crops, approximately 320 mm, and the lowest for winter crops, nearly 32 mm for RCP8.5 in the far future (2070–2099). The decrease in CWA and increase in CWD would cause a sharp rise in crop water stress in Iraq. This study indicates that the increase in temperature is the main reason for a large increase in CWD and increased agricultural water stress in Iraq.

In response to the growing demand of reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions within maritime sector, Onboard Carbon Capture and Storage (OCCS) technologies provide as key solutions for tackling carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions from ships. This review paper offers a comprehensive overview of recent developments, challenges, and prospects of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies considering specifically for onboard ship applications. Various Carbon Capture (CC) methods, ranging from post-combustion and pre-combustion capture to oxy-fuel combustion, are critically analysed concerning their operating principles, advantages, disadvantages and applicability in the maritime context. Temporary onboard CO₂ storage is examined in its gaseous, supercritical, solid, and liquid states. In this regard, solid and liquid forms are found promising, although solid storage is not yet commercially mature. The review also addresses the challenges in implementing the CC technologies on ships, including space constraints, energy requirements, safety concerns, and economic viability. A comparative assessment is conducted to determine the most promising OCCS technologies. The study finds that post-combustion CC by chemical absorption requires more space than cryogenic and membrane separation, with the latter two deemed viable options, albeit with trade-offs in energy consumption and cost. The study would provide valuable insights and ideas for further research in the field of OCCS technologies.

As the number of ships for marine transportation increases with the advancement of global trade, encountering multiple ships in marine traffic becomes common. This situation raises the risk of collision of the ships; hence, this paper proposes a novel Fuzzy-logic based intelligent conflict detection and resolution algorithm, where the collision courses and possible avoiding actions are analysed by considering ship motion dynamics and the input and output fuzzy membership functions are derived. As a conflict detection module, the Collision Risk (CR) is measured for each ship by using a scaled nondimensional Distance to the Closest Point of Approach (DCPA) and Time to the Closest Point of Approach (TCPA) as inputs. Afterwards, the decisions for collision avoidance are made based on the calculated CR, encountering angle and relative angle of each ship measured from others. In this regard, the rules for the Fuzzy interface system are defined in accordance with the COLREGs, and the whole system is implemented on the MATLAB Simulink platform. In addition, to deal with the multiple ship encounters, the paper proposes a unique maximum-course and minimum-speed change approach for decision making, which has been found to be efficient to solve Imazu problems, and other complicated multiple-ship encounters.