I am an Associate Professor of the Soils & Water Use Department at the National Research Centre (NRC) of Egypt. I earned a Master of Science in 2010 from the University of Lleida and the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Zaragoza in Spain. In 2014, I achieved my PhD from the University of Seville in Spain and, in collaboration with Wageningen University in the Netherlands and the University of Kentucky in the USA, with honors (summa cum laude). I was also a visiting scientist at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (UKCEH) for six months in 2018.

In 2021, I was selected as a Visiting Scientist of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) President’s International Fellowship Initiative (PIFI), which I started at the beginning of 2023. This valuable and prestigious fellowship allowed me to collaborate and have a productive partnership with my supervisor, Professor Gui Dongwei, and his team at CAS’s Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography (XIEG).

Our research examined the seasonal cooling effects of green and blue areas in arid regions over nine months of productive collaboration at XIEG. We also collaborated to study potential ecological restoration in drylands under water scarcity and climate change scenarios. During this period, I had the pleasure of co-supervising a PhD student in his research endeavor to examine the alterations in the land use and land cover of global oases, and the main driving factors over the past three decades. Furthermore, we contributed to soil sampling planning for Xinjiang by collecting more than 1,200 soil samples for upcoming research to calculate the soil organic carbon stock under different land uses and climate change scenarios. During the various field trips, we observed that the major threats to the natural and agricultural resources of Xinjiang are climate change, extreme events (water scarcity and drought), inappropriate agriculture management, plant diseases, and soil degradation (salinity, compaction, and erosion). Based on the CAS PIFI collaboration, Professor Gui and I are guest editors for a special issue in the Journal of Environmental Management published by Elsevier, entitled “Holistic Environmental Management to Prevent Land Degradation and Support Restoration”.

My CAS PIFI experience has been beneficial for establishing long-term research connections between CAS’s Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography in China and the National Research Centre in Egypt, with the potential of future project funding through collaborative funds between Chinese (e.g., MOST, NFSC) and Egyptian (e.g., ASRT, STDF) organizations.

Along with my scientific duties in Professor Gui’s group, I took part in activities for the international office, such as a foreign expert trip to the north of Xinjiang to see the beautiful Yili Botanical Garden, the Gongnaisi Mountain Meadow Grassland Nature Reserve and visited Tianshan Station for Snowcover and Avalanche Research of CAS’s XIEG. During my scientific visit to XIEG, I had the opportunity to attend the graduation ceremony for PhD and MSc students, as well as participate in the scientific activity planned by XIEG, “International Forum on Sustainable Development of Ecology and Environment in the Silk Road Economic Belt”, in collaboration with the Science and Technology Department of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region and the Xinjiang Association for Science and Technology, from September 18 to 19, 2023.

In conclusion, my experience in Xinjiang has profoundly impacted my scientific career and personal development. I strongly advise researchers to visit Xinjiang to experience its unique physical geographic features, highly productive agricultural land, and natural beauty, as it contains a part of the Tianshan Mountains system (heaven mountains or mountains of God). Finally, I enjoyed collaborating with Professor Gui as an excellent scientist, in addition to his gracious character and generous hospitality. I hope to continue collaborating and exchanging knowledge with Professor Gui in combating land degradation and climate change adaptation to save nature, increase human prosperity, and sustain agricultural productivity. Thanks to CAS PIFI, I’ve had the fantastic chance to discover the gorgeous nature of Xinjiang and learn about China’s drylands over the past nine months.

Source: Sameh Kotb Abd-Elmabod,

Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography,

Chinese Academy of Sciences