After successfully defending his doctoral thesis on January 27, 2025, titled 'Spatial Differentiation in Post-War Housing Estates: Enhancing Monitoring and Evaluation Practices for Recovery in Damascus,' Mounir Azzam was awarded his doctorate. He was supervised by Jun.-Prof. Dr. Andreas Rienow as the first supervisor and Prof. Dr. Carsten Jürgens as the second supervisor, with Prof. Dr. Matthias Kiese serving as a member of the doctoral committee. The defense took place in the presence of Prof. Dr. Adrian Immenhauser, Dean of the Faculty of Geosciences.
The cumulative doctoral thesis analyzes the crises in the real estate market during war, focusing on spatial differentiation in property values. Drawing on global experiences, it develops a framework to monitor real estate value differentiation and its connection to urban disorder in the Damascus metropolitan area from 2010 to 2022. The study introduces innovative valuation and visualization models to address spatial discrepancies in neighboring districts and foster smart, sustainable development investments. The thesis was developed through the publication of three scientific papers in prestigious peer-reviewed journals:

• Challenges and Innovations of Real Estate for Achieving Spatial Balance in Post-Disaster Countries. Land, 2022, 11(5), 737; DOI: 10.3390/land11050737
• The Effect of War on Spatial Differentiation of Real Estate Values and Urban Disorder in the Damascus Metropolitan Area. Urban Science, 2024, 8(4), 183; DOI: 10.3390/urbansci8040183
• Enhancing Property Valuation in Post-War Recovery: Integrating War-Related Attributes into Real Estate Valuation Practices. Smart Cities, 2024, 7(4), 1776-1801; DOI: 10.3390/smartcities7040069