The statements on the pages on natural coolness and on water rest on the sources listed below. Every figure in the text carries a note pointing to one of them; where a source is weak, second-hand or not yet checked against a printed edition, the page says so rather than choosing the more suggestive version. The courtyard measurements come from Andalusia and the Alhambra: on Fez the published literature is still one of calculation, and the first measurement of the house will be its own.

Climate, policy and the 2030 Agenda

• — Climate normals 1991–2020, Fès-Saïss station (WMO 60141), NOAA/NCEI, as reported by secondary sources; to be checked against the NCEI file.
• — Direction Générale de la Météorologie (Maroc), press release of 17 August 2021 (46.7 °C in Fez on 13 August 2021) and 2024 climate report.
• — IEA, National Climate Resilience Assessment for Morocco, 2023.
• — IEA, The Future of Cooling, 2018; UNEP, Global Cooling Watch 2023.
• — Règlement thermique de construction au Maroc, decree no. 2-13-874 of 15 October 2014 (zone Z3, Fez), simplified version; to be checked against the Bulletin Officiel.
• — Banca Mondiale, CCDR Maroc – Note technique : Pénurie d’eau et sécheresses, March 2023.
• — United Nations, 2030 Agenda, targets 3.d, 6.4, 6.b, 7.3, 11.4, 11.c, 12.2, 13.1, 13.3 (sdgs.un.org).

The microclimate of courtyards

• — R. El Harrouni, M. Benaicha, I. M. Benkirane, V. Becue, «Bioclimatic assessment and thermal comfort of traditional Riads in Fez Medina», Results in Engineering 29 (2026), 108889, doi 10.1016/j.rineng.2025.108889.
• — K. El Harrouni, M. Ben Aicha, R. El Harrouni, «Parametric modelling and traditional architecture: improving the thermal comfort of the traditional courtyard house in Morocco», MATEC Web of Conferences 149 (2018), 02051, doi 10.1051/matecconf/201814902051 (cites Y. Etzion, Architectural Science Review 33, and the Enquête Logement 2000).
• — C. Rivera-Gómez, E. Diz-Mellado, C. Galán-Marín, V. López-Cabeza, «Tempering potential-based evaluation of the courtyard microclimate as a combined function of aspect ratio and outdoor temperature», Sustainable Cities and Society 51 (2019), 101740.
• — E. Diz-Mellado, V. P. López-Cabeza, C. Rivera-Gómez, C. Galán-Marín, J. Rojas-Fernández, M. Nikolopoulou, «Extending the adaptive thermal comfort models for courtyards», Building and Environment 203 (2021), 108094.
• — E. Diz-Mellado, Á. Ruiz-Pardo, C. Rivera-Gómez, F. J. Sánchez de la Flor, C. Galán-Marín, «Unravelling the impact of courtyard geometry on cooling energy consumption in buildings», Building and Environment 237 (2023), 110349.
• — V. P. López-Cabeza, C. Galán-Marín, C. Rivera-Gómez, «Thermodynamic performance enhancement of courtyards using a shading device», Proceedings 38 (2020), 17.
• — B. Jiménez Alcalá, «Natural cooling in Hispano-Moslem residential architecture: the case-study of the Court of the Lions and the Court of Comares in the Alhambra (Granada)», PLEA’99, Brisbane 1999, pp. 399–406.
• — D. Zhao et al., «Radiative sky cooling: fundamental principles, materials, and applications», Applied Physics Reviews 6 (2019), 021306.
• — FAO, Crop evapotranspiration, Irrigation and Drainage Paper 56, 1998, tab. 2.

Water: hydraulics, rule, the history of Fez

• — L. J. García-Pulido, «The Alijares Palace (Qaṣr al-Dishār) at the Alhambra: a bioclimatic analysis», Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies 10/1 (2016), pp. 46–71; id., «The mastery in hydraulic techniques for water supply at the Alhambra», Journal of Islamic Studies 27/3 (2016), pp. 355–382.
• — C. Trillo San José, Agua, tierra y hombres en al-Andalus. La dimensión agrícola del mundo nazarí, Granada 2004; ead., Agua y paisaje en Granada. Una herencia de al-Andalus, Diputación de Granada 2003; ead., «El agua en al-Andalus: teoría y aplicación según la cultura islámica», Tecnología del Agua 271 (2006).
• — T. Madani, L’eau dans le monde musulman médiéval : l’exemple de Fès (Maroc) et de sa région, thesis, Université Lumière Lyon 2, 2003.
• — R. Le Tourneau, Fès avant le Protectorat, Casablanca 1949.
• — M. Ayacine, M. El Bouchikhi, K. Obda, «Le patrimoine hydraulique de la médina de Fès et le développement durable», Espaces 6–7 (2019).
• — M. El Faïz, Les maîtres de l’eau. Histoire de l’hydraulique arabe, Actes Sud 2005.

Arabic texts cited

• — Qur’an, al-Wāqiʿa 56:30–31; al-Anbiyāʾ 21:30; al-Insān 76:18 (ʿUthmānī text).
• — Abū Dāwūd, Sunan, Kitāb al-ijāra, n. 3477 (ṣaḥīḥ according to al-Albānī).
• — Ibn Mājah, Sunan, Kitāb al-ṭahāra, n. 425 (weak chain through Ibn Lahīʿa; cited as such).
• — Ibn Khaldūn, al-Muqaddima, book I, ch. IV, sect. 5, ed. Khalīl Shaḥāda, Beirut 1988, I, pp. 433–434.
• — Ibn Abī Zarʿ, al-Anīs al-muṭrib bi-rawḍ al-qirṭās, description of Fez; text read from a scan and normalised, to be collated against the Rabat 1972 edition.
• — Ibn Zamrak, inscription on the Fountain of the Lions; reading to be verified against E. García Gómez, Poemas árabes en los muros y fuentes de la Alhambra, Madrid 1985.
• — Ibn Khafāja, Dīwān.
• — al-Jaznāʾī, Janā zahrat al-ās fī bināʾ madīnat Fās, ed. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb Ibn Manṣūr, Rabat 1991 — cited only as a work to consult, not for figures.

The translations from Arabic are our own and await review by an Arabist; the vocalisation of the Qur’anic passages and of the two ḥadīth comes from the sources, that of Ibn Khaldūn follows the Shaḥāda edition, that of Ibn Abī Zarʿ and Ibn Zamrak is reconstructed.

What does not appear on these pages

Three statements present in earlier versions of the same pages were checked and corrected: the record of “46 °C in July 2017”, which could not be confirmed (the Direction Générale de la Météorologie figure is 46.7 °C on 13 August 2021); the rule that the courtyard stays cooler as long as the walls exceed its width, which is Yair Etzion’s and comes from the Negev, not from a Moroccan measurement; and the percentages on damp in traditional houses, which come from the national Enquête Logement 2000, cited second-hand.

Absent are the counts of fountains, baths and mills of Almohad Fez, which circulate in discordant forms; the verses of Ibn Luyūn on the layout of house and garden, whose Arabic text could not be found; and any published measurement of the isolated effect of evaporation in Andalusian courtyards, which does not exist. The images on the two pages are study renderings, declared as such: the house is not yet built.