Sep 9, 2026
Architecture, building, skyscraper, plants, green, modern, nature, hanging garden by Squirrel_photos via Pixabay
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by Krystal Kasal, Phys.org
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain
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Drylands are defined as regions where rainfall is low relative to the atmosphere’s ability to draw water from soil and plants. Expanding boundaries of these regions are frequent concerns in climate change considerations. While they can support large populations and ecosystems, dryland expansion can worsen water scarcity, land degradation and desertification.
Many projections of future dryland expansion assume warming simply raises evaporation, but a new study suggests the process is more complex. The study, published in Environmental Research Letters, incorporates the reduced evapotranspiration that plants exhibit under increased carbon dioxide (CO2) levels and finds that previous estimates of dryland expansion may be off.
Estimating current and future dryland area
Previous estimates of Earth’s total dryland area have varied, ranging from roughly 37% to 47% of land area, depending on the data and methods used. These estimates typically use the aridity index, which is defined as the ratio of precipitation to potential evapotranspiration (PET), where PET is the maximum amount of water that would evaporate from the soil and transpire from plants if an unlimited water supply were available. The data used to calculate rainfall and PET vary among studies, however.
The authors of the new study write, “Many of these assessments, however, relied on climate data prior to 2010, whereas global climate conditions have changed substantially over the past decade. Recent drought intensification and land-atmosphere feedbacks further suggest that some regions may already have shifted toward drier conditions. Because dryland boundaries are defined by aridity index (AI), which integrates precipitation and PET, changes in water supply or atmospheric evaporative demand can alter the spatial extent of drylands. Therefore, the current spatial distribution of global drylands needs to be reassessed using updated climate data.”
The issue extends to future assessments as well. The authors note that projected dryland expansion in conventional aridity-index studies has varied from about 4% to 10% and 11% to 23% of land area under different greenhouse gas scenarios. However, these models usually leave out changes in plant evapotranspiration under high CO2 levels.
Weaker expansion when including plant responses to CO2
The researchers sought to better quantify the current and future distribution of global drylands and identify hotspots of increasing drying and wetting under three different emissions scenarios by incorporating plant responses to CO2. They combined historical climate observations with projections from 19 major climate models. They used multiple classes of dryland, from semi-arid to hyper-arid, and compared a standard evaporation calculation with one adjusted for the effects of rising CO2 on plant water use.
Their results indicated that drylands covered 38.58% of the world’s land, excluding Antarctica, during the period 1994–2023, with semi-arid zones accounting for the largest percentage of global drylands. Hyper-arid zones occurred in Algeria, Libya and Saudi Arabia. The team also says global dryland area increased overall from 1960 to 2023, though the pace slowed in more recent decades.
Projected spatial distribution of global drylands and associated climate zones under different emission scenarios. Credit: Environmental Research Letters (2026). DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ae9b29
The new future projections indicate that even under the highest-emissions pathway, drylands are projected to cover about 40.28% of land by 2100, which corresponds to around 2.37 million square kilometers (915,000 square miles). Under the lowest-emissions pathway, the model shows a dryland cover of 39.31%, or 1.09 million square kilometers (421,000 square miles). Leaving out CO2 plant effects raises the projected dryland share from 40.28% to 42.11%—a difference of about 2.44 million square kilometers (942,000 square miles) under a high-emissions scenario. Australia, eastern Brazil and parts of northern Africa stand out as persistent or emerging drying risk regions, while parts of northern and northwestern China show continuing wetting trends.
Net changes vs. regional changes
Although the net global dryland expansion is predicted to be more limited in this model, the study found substantial spatial reorganization of drying and wetting hotspots across global drylands. For example, under the SSP585 emissions scenario, transitioning areas shifting between drying and wetting hotspots reach 13.0% of land area, in which drying-to-wetting transitions actually dominate, covering 11.4%.
“The limited net increase in global dryland area does not imply weak regional change. Under SSP585, the global dryland fraction increases by only 1.7 percentage points relative to the 1994–2023 baseline, but climate-zone transitions affect 14.75% of the global terrestrial area. Changes in total dryland extent summarize only the net outcome of spatial gains and losses, whereas climate-zone redistribution captures shifts in dryland boundaries and subtype transitions. Thus, a limited net change in global dryland area can coexist with marked regional reorganization,” the study authors explain.
The team notes that climate-model disagreement is greatest at the edges of drylands, where small changes can shift a region between categories, and that it does not fully include irrigation, groundwater pumping, land-use change or other human water demands. Future studies may improve estimates by testing multiple evaporation methods and more detailed land-atmosphere models and combining climate projections with vegetation change, soil moisture, groundwater, irrigation and land management.
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Sep 7, 2026
The Flying Saucer, Sharjah, UAE, 1978 (Photo: Danko Stjepanovic, 2020. Courtesy of Sharjah Art Foundation)
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As the Gulf, and the UAE in particular, raced to develop modern cities and contemporary buildings, some of its older, historic structures and architecture were left behind. This year, the UAE Ministry of Culture launched the National Register of Modern Architectural Heritage to ensure these buildings are protected, preserved, and recognized as important cultural landmarks.
Behind the glitzy buildings that line Dubai’s Sheikh Zayed Road are neighborhoods etched with the markings of a developing nation. Over the last few decades, the urban transformation of the Gulf has been seen across the UAE, but also in cities like Kuwait, Doha, and Riyadh. Modernist architecture slowly transformed into sparkling skyscrapers, and older, kitschy buildings began to disappear. The UAE is now stepping in to protect these buildings with laws and a significant new initiative.
The 1970s oil boom sparked rapid construction across the Gulf as governments responded to growing demand for housing from citizens and an influx of foreign workers. International architects and planners were brought to the Gulf in droves to design buildings and cities, which Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi, founder of Burjeel Art Foundation, explains in his 2021 paper “Conclusions: Modernism’s Back and Forth”, published in Urban Modernity in the Contemporary Gulf.
But these experts at the time had little to no knowledge of the local context and struggled with access to information such as demographics to better understand the Gulf societies they were building for. They were further impeded by the fact that these states were growing too quickly to keep up with any concrete plan.
Gulf Modernism therefore emerged between the 1950s and 1970s, characterized by reinforced concrete, geometric forms, and functional architecture. The oil boom of the time led to rapid development which saw this distinct architectural aesthetic emerge across cities in Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.
“Modernist architecture developed differently across regions, adapting to the cultural and environmental contexts in which it emerged,” says Mona El Mousfy, architecture consultant at Sharjah Art Foundation, which has been engaged in identifying, activating, and adaptively reusing modern heritage buildings across the city and the Emirate since 2015. “In the Gulf, climate and local traditions played a defining role in shaping a distinct regional expression of modernism.”
Al Qasimiyah School, Sharjah, 1981 (Photo: Ahmed Osama Galal, 2025)
Seen in both building typologies and the architectural elements that were employed at the time, features such as covered walkways and sikkas, combined with high-level openings that encouraged cross-ventilation, became characteristic features of many modernist markets and public buildings. Courtyard layouts, for example, continued to be used because they responded simultaneously to cultural traditions and climatic needs.
In April, The UAE Ministry of Culture announced the launch of the National Register of Modern Architectural Heritage, which identified the need to protect and preserve the buildings built during the Gulf’s rapid boom. It was also a response to increasing modernization and development across the UAE’s emerging cities that have put several prominent buildings at risk of demolition. The strategy’s aim is to establish a comprehensive national register for cultural heritage with a particular focus on modern architectural heritage—the first in the country.
The first phase of the registry comprised ten buildings from across the UAE, including Rashid Tower, which was inaugurated in 1979, and the Deira Clock Tower, one of Dubai’s oldest urban landmarks.
In July, Union House became the first building formally included as part of the UAE’s National Register of Modern Architectural Heritage. Located within Etihad Museum, Union House was the setting for the signing of the UAE Constitution and where the formation of the United Arab Emirates was declared on December 2, 1971.
“By including [Union House] in the National Register of Modern Architectural Heritage, we reaffirm our commitment to protecting sites of exceptional national and cultural value, ensuring their sustainability as sources of knowledge and inspiration, and preserving them as living testimonies to the achievements the UAE has realized since the establishment of the Union,” said Sheikh Salem bin Khalid Al Qassimi, the UAE Minister of Culture at the time of the inclusion.
Old Al Jubail Vegetable Market, Sharjah, 1981 (Photo: Danko Stjepanovic, 2022)
In Abu Dhabi, buildings like the National Consultative Council building at Qasr Al Hosn, long associated with institutional development of the country since 1968 and the Cultural Foundation, which was built in 1981, were also given protections, alongside cultural and academic landmarks such as the Islamic Institute at the United Arab Emirates University in Al Ain, an academic institution that has churned out graduates since 1976.
In Sharjah, the Khalid Bin Mohammed School, the Al Qasimia School, and the Special Education Support Centre were included to the registry, alongside Saqr Hospital in Ras Al Khaimah, which has held a significant place in the country’s collective memory since 1981.
Sharjah has long had a strategy to protect architectural heritage, with legislation already in place, says El Mousfy. “Today, however, it is increasingly important to extend this framework to explicitly include modern heritage. This architectural layer is particularly vulnerable due to rapid urban development and increasing density across cities and towns,” she explains.
The architecture of Sharjah’s buildings from the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s, adds El Mousfy, embodies significant design values that are characterized by a comfortable human scale and thoughtful responses to their sites and climate. “Their typologies prioritize shade, porosity, cross-ventilation, and natural air movement, creating environments that remain pleasant and comfortable for occupants,” she says.
Sharjah Art Foundation Head Quarters, Bank Street Building, 1977 (Photo: Danko Stjepanovic)
Sharjah Art Foundation has taken an even bigger role to support the implementation of the National Policy for the Preservation of Modern Architectural Heritage in that emirate. In May, the foundation announced that it would establish a new committee that will work towards the preservation of Sharjah’s modern architectural heritage while also contributing to the development of policies and legislation that safeguard these sites for future generations. The committee will also work on listing, research and documentation of modern heritage buildings as part of the emirate’s historical identity.
The committee includes representatives from the Department of Town Planning and Survey, Mubadara, Sharjah Municipalities, Sharjah Architecture Triennial and Sharjah Institute for Heritage as well as those from the Foundation.
According to El Mousfy, the first phase of this process involves documenting, classifying, and conducting research on these buildings. Then each year, a shortlist of classified buildings will undergo a more detailed assessment based on a range of criteria to conclude whether protection will be offered under the registry.
“To list a building in Sharjah in both the UAE National Register of Modern Architectural Heritage and Sharjah’s Register of Modern Architectural Heritage, we need to demonstrate how the building’s typology, architectural language, construction methods, and design elements clearly express these identified values,” she explains.
The modernist buildings of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s remain highly contextual. They are an essential part of the UAE’s cultural identity, and continue to retain the welcoming, human scale that has long defined them.
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Sep 6, 2026
A woman in a graduation gown holding a mortarboard at Anıtkabir, Ankara, by Berna via Pexels
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Fake ranking sites target Global South universities – Study
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Fake Webometrics University Rankings (WURs) are targeting universities in the Global South, leading to the rise of dissemination of inaccurate ranking data through news outlets and consulting agencies.
But they have remained largely obscured from the European academic community due to Geo-IP masking tactics, which necessitate the adopting of institutional measures to enhance vigilance and safeguard the integrity and authority of academic rankings.
This is the outcome of a study that provided a comprehensive analysis of the fake Webometrics University Rankings (WURs) phenomenon observed in the first half of 2026 after investigating 300 publications gathered from 39 countries between 6 January and 6 July 2026.
Titled “Fake Webometrics University Rankings: Network expansion, Geo-IP cloaking, and institutional vulnerabilities in the global south”, the study was published on 18 August in Preprints.org – a free multidisciplinary platform providing a preprint service dedicated to making early versions of research outputs permanently available and citable.
The author of the study, independent researcher and consultant Dr Vladimir Moskovkin, said: “This study moves beyond identifying isolated web scams; it documents an aggressive, transnational ‘metric chimera’ economy”.
Moskovkin is the former director of the Centre for the Development of Publication Activity at Belgorod State National Research University, Russia, where he was also a professor in the university’s Department of World Economy.
He told University World News he was able to confirm obscuration in Europe because that is where he is based – in the Czech Republic – but he believes the fake rankings are also obscured in other developed countries, such as the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, and surmises that the information campaigns involving fake rankings were targeted exclusively at countries in the Global South.
“The evolution from simple fake website clones (spring 2025/early 2026) to complex ‘July 2026 new wave’ domains (webometrics.one, webometrics.top, webometric.org) indicates that perpetrators are highly adaptive,” Moskovkin pointed out.
“By exposing how fake domains bypass European detection through Geo-IP masking and successfully penetrate official state documents and international recruitment portals (like SMAPSE or BAYHOST), the research highlights a systemic threat to the integrity of global higher education,” Moskovkin indicated.
“The scammers configured the server so that the fake webometrics.org content was displayed only to users from specific regions (South-East Asia, the Middle East, and Africa) – areas where the demand for rankings is highest and vigilance is lower,” Moskovkin pointed out.
“Therefore, safeguarding higher education requires a coordinated global response involving researchers, media watchdogs, and state accreditation bodies,” Moskovkin stressed.
Phenonomon driven by technologies
Moskovkin said: “The study reveals that approximately 65% of cases involving the dissemination of inaccurate ranking data were initiated by news outlets and consulting agencies.”
He noted that this proves that the phenomenon is “largely driven by PR technologies and information aggregation, rather than isolated errors by universities themselves”.
“The most striking finding is the pronounced geographical imbalance: 81.3% of fake publications originate from the Global South, with Indonesia acting as the primary epicentre (accounting for over 50% of all recorded publications), followed by Turkey (10.3%), Ukraine (8.7%) and both the Philippines and Egypt (7.0%),” Moskovkin added.
Other countries – totalling 34 countries, 23.3% of publications – include developing countries such as Montenegro, Jordan, Moldova, Uganda, and Yemen.
“The presence of developed nations (the US, Spain, Israel, the UK, Germany and Canada) is sporadic and associated with local marketing errors or the activity of international consulting and recruitment agencies.
“Overall, this confirms the transnational and opportunistic nature of the fake WUR market, penetrating any region in search of image-driven demand,” Moskovkin indicated.
“This shows that universities in developing regions, facing immense pressure regarding publication performance and rigid KPI/accreditation systems, are uniquely vulnerable to fake rankings and actively exploit them to simulate international prestige,” Moskovkin pointed out.
“Furthermore, the data demonstrates a clear Pareto distribution, where a small number of countries hold the vast majority of ‘fake webometric weight’, creating an institutionalised illusion of global success,” Moskovkin indicated.
Takeaway messages to HE policymakers
Asked about the most important takeaway messages for higher education policymakers and decision makers, Moskovkin said: “Policymakers and university leadership must realise that relying on unverified web metrics for national KPIs, hiring criteria, and institutional benchmarking creates a dangerous feedback loop of misinformation.”
He said ministries of higher education need to establish rigorous, independent audit mechanisms for academic metrics and rely solely on authentic, verified international repositories, such as the official data hosted on Figshare via the Cybermetrics Lab.
“An example of such successful work is the effort of the Center for Civic Education (CCE) in Montenegro, which, based on our research, succeeded in having an erroneous Order of the Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation of Montenegro revoked.
“The Order had been based on the fake webometrics.org ranking when hiring faculty for Montenegrin universities,” Moskovkin pointed out.
He said several actions must be taken to deal with the rise of the fake university ranking systems.
First, he said, official ranking providers and the academic community must take technical and legal action.
“Official providers must implement proactive legal and technical defences, while the academic community must establish global observatories.”
Moskovkin has published several studies and reports about fake university ranking sites in 2026, including the study titled “Pandemic of ‘Predatory’ Rankings: Why academic integrity fails the stress test” and the article titled “Predatory university rankings jeopardise the value of Webometrics”, and is involved in a group of higher education experts which is in the final stage of launching Global Observatory on Academic Metrics and University Rankings (GOAMUR), which will “continuously monitor, expose, and neutralise predatory ranking networks before they distort educational policy and consumer trust”.
Second, strategies identified in the group’s research must be implemented.
“These include the urgent restoration of the official webometrics.info portal as a single source of truth, the enforcement of strict verification protocols that require universities to cross-check any ranking claims solely against authentic repositories (such as the official Figshare archive), and the establishment of global monitoring systems to inform regulators about the geo-targeting tactics used by scammers to bypass detection,” Moskovkin said.
Third, GOAMUR is preparing an open letter to the ministries of higher education and scientific research worldwide, calling on national governments to take direct responsibility for monitoring and sanctioning the use of fake metrics within their own jurisdictions.
“Given the unprecedented, global scale of this academic fraud, it is time for ministries to ensure that institutional ‘prestige’ is not built on digital deception and to hold local universities accountable for upholding academic integrity,” Moskovkin stressed.
A threat to global HE sector
Global higher education expert and director of strategic insights at RMIT University in Australia, Angel Calderon, told University World News: “The continued proliferation of fake global university rankings, alongside the growing visibility of fraudulent or unsubstantiated expertise, is a matter of significant concern for the global higher education sector.
“While strategic geo-targeting is increasingly evident, particularly in emerging economies that are strengthening their higher education systems, it is important to emphasise the need to empower university leaders and the broader academic community to uphold academic integrity and adhere to the ethical principles of responsible scholarly publishing and information dissemination,” added Calderon, who is the author of “Sustainability Rankings: What they are about and how to make them meaningful”.
Proliferation of fake rankings expected
Calderon warned that the proliferation of fake global rankings and fraudulent expertise is unlikely to disappear anytime soon in an era of rapid technological transformation.
“I anticipate that academics and institutions will increasingly become targets of unscrupulous entities seeking commercial gain, as competition for resources intensifies and the pressure to demonstrate institutional relevance grows.
“This underscores the need for continued vigilance against such practices and for sustained efforts to raise awareness among university leaders, policymakers, academics, the media, and society more broadly.”
He said it is imperative to foster greater collaboration between academics in established higher education systems and their counterparts in emerging and developing systems, enabling them to learn from one another while strengthening quality assurance, upholding academic integrity, and promoting responsible academic practice.
Governments should be ‘more active’
“At the same time, national governments should be encouraged to play a more active role in establishing and strengthening frameworks for academic integrity, as well as robust systems for the verification and dissemination of reliable information.”
He said that while many critics contend that global rankings should be discontinued, they are unlikely to disappear anytime soon. Similarly, the pressure on academics to publish is unlikely to diminish in the foreseeable future.
“Ideally, we should reframe the ways in which academic staff are recognised and rewarded by reducing the sector’s reliance on quantitative performance indicators, including bibliometric measures.
“These challenges are complex and unlikely to be resolved easily,” he said.
“Nevertheless, it is important to continue discussions on reforming academic promotion and reward systems to ensure that they more fully recognise the breadth, quality, and impact of academic contributions.”
University World News reached out to the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities, QS World University Rankings, ShanghaiRanking’s Academic Ranking of World Universities and THE World University Rankings for reaction to the study but received no responses.
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