Preprints
There are 6570 Preprints listed.
The Solar Paradox: Pure Social Diffusion and Competitive Resource Capture in Semi-Arid Irrigated Land Expansion
Published: 2026-03-01
Subjects: Agriculture, Engineering, Life Sciences
Solar-powered irrigation is expanding rapidly across semi-arid regions, but the mechanisms through which this technology diffuses in informal groundwa- ter economies—where the majority of wells operate without permits—remain poorly understood. We address this gap through a spatiotemporal analysis of 3,201 solar wells identified via satellite census in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia, combined with 10,000 [...]
Resonant Activation of Oxygen as a Hypothetical Method for Low-Temperature Oxidation of Methane in Coal Seams: Theoretical Analysis, Parametric Modeling, and Regime Maps
Published: 2026-03-01
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
This paper presents a comprehensive theoretical study of a hypothetical method for low-temperature oxidation of methane directly within a coal seam. The method is based on resonant excitation of molecular oxygen by an electromagnetic field at ∼1.6 MHz, corresponding to its EPR transition in the Earth's geomagnetic field. The work includes calculation of a priori determinable parameters (resonant [...]
Proof-of-Concept: Vertical Wind Profile Reconstruction from Ground-Based Optical Sensors Using Machine Learning
Published: 2026-03-01
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Mathematics, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Vertical wind profiles are critical for weather forecasting, aviation safety, and atmospheric research, yet remain sparsely observed due to the high cost of radiosondes (€100–200 per launch) and wind profiler radars (€100,000–1,000,000). We present a proof-of-concept demonstrating that ground-based optical measurements from low-cost amateur radio sensors can predict upper-air wind speeds across [...]
Interplay between geometry and brittle deformation of bedrock fault scarps
Published: 2026-03-01
Subjects: Geology, Tectonics and Structure
Energy built up during interseismic phases is released during earthquakes as seismic energy and dissipated within fault zones. Seismological observations indicate spatial variations in earthquake behavior across a fault (e.g., rupture speed, stress drop, wave directivity). However, how this relates to energy dissipation through brittle fracturing in the fault zone is difficult to quantify from [...]
PaleoEurope-DEM v1.0: A distributed pipeline for continental-scale paleo-landscape reconstruction from FABDEM-GEBCO fusion and glacial isostatic adjustment
Published: 2026-02-28
Subjects: Geology, Glaciology, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing
Reconstructing paleo-landscapes at high spatial resolution is essential for understanding Quaternary environmental change, yet no open-source, reproducible pipeline currently exists for fusing modern elevation data with glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA) models at continental scale. We present PaleoEurope-DEM v1.0, a distributed processing pipeline that produces continuous topo-bathymetric [...]
Terra Preta de Índio as an Emergent Ecological State: Reclassifying a Path-Dependent Attractor from Constructible Substrate
Published: 2026-02-28
Subjects: Soil Science
Terra Preta de Índio (Amazonian Dark Earth) has resisted reproducible replication despite decades of study. This manuscript advances a structured, falsifiable hypothesis rather than reporting new primary empirical data. It proposes that Terra Preta is not a replicable soil substrate but an emergent ecological state arising from path-dependent processes operating over centuries. Unlike [...]
Quantifying Wave Setup Climatology along the U.S. East and Gulf Coasts using a Coupled Hydrodynamic-Wave Model
Published: 2026-02-28
Subjects: Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Wave setup, the increase in coastal mean water level due to wave breaking, is an important but understudied component of coastal sea-level long-term variability. This study quantifies the wave setup climatology along the U.S. East and Gulf of Mexico coasts using high-resolution hydrodynamic (ADCIRC) and wave (SWAN) models. The models are forced with hourly surface pressure and wind fields, total [...]
Accelerating community research applications of the NextGen water modeling framework through CUAHSI HydroShare linked with CIROH-2i2c JupyterHub
Published: 2026-02-28
Subjects: Engineering
This research integrates existing cyberinfrastructure tools and modeling workflows to support application of the Next Generation Water Resources Modeling Framework (NextGen) for research-scale subdomains across the U.S. We linked the CUAHSI HydroShare data and model repository to the CIROH 2i2c-JupyterHub cloud computing platform to establish a flexible, scalable collaborative environment for [...]
Evaluation of high-resolution gridded climate products in reproducing spatial and temporal variation in precipitation in central Panama
Published: 2026-02-28
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences
Tropical forests vary widely in their precipitation regimes and seasonal water availability, but high-quality in-situ (ground-based) meteorological data are rare, and few studies have evaluated the performance of global gridded climate products in the tropics. We compared the performance of eleven high-resolution gridded climate products against in-situ datasets spanning high rainfall variation [...]
From Roots to Canopy: An Evolving Framework for Critical Zone Education and Outreach
Published: 2026-02-28
Subjects: Education, Educational Methods, Higher Education, Science and Mathematics Education
Critical Zone (CZ) science provides an integrative framework for understanding the Earth as an interconnected system spanning from the vegetation canopy through soils and weathered rock to groundwater. While the CZ concept has become foundational within earth and environmental sciences, it remains unfamiliar to many educators, students, and community audiences. This paper presents the evolution [...]
Multi-Parametric Assessment of Avian Biodiversity and Anthropogenic Disturbance for Conservation Prioritization in Belize
Published: 2026-02-28
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Background: Anthropogenic climate change and rising levels have accelerated global warming, causing severe disruptions to Belizean ecosystems through sea-level rise and habitat fragmentation. To mitigate these impacts, identifying high-value land for protected status is a critical conservation priority for maintaining medicinal biodiversity and preventing zoonotic disease spillover. Objective: [...]
Mutual interactions between aquifer thermal energy storage and groundwater extraction: global sensitivity insights
Published: 2026-02-28
Subjects: Hydrology
Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES) is increasingly deployed in groundwater protection zones, motivating a quantitative assessment of thermal impacts on public-supply wells and the influence of supply-well pumping on ATES performance. In the Campine Basin (Belgium), we simulate three settings: balanced operation, seasonal imbalance, and multi-system deployment. Using a groundwater flow and [...]
Declining Snowpack in the Presence of Stable Precipitation May Not Negatively Impact Baseflow or Floodplain Vegetation in the Middle Fork Rock Creek Watershed, Montana, USA
Published: 2026-02-28
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Natural Resources and Conservation
In the age of snow droughts and megafires, water availability and changes in precipitation, snowpack, and baseflows are active areas of research. Headwater streams are where all large rivers begin, but their seasonal water availability is difficult to measure because they are so abundant and remote. Remote sensing can help monitor small streams semi-arid areas if there is an appropriate proxy for [...]
Dynamic critical groundwater depth as a predictor of irrigation-intensified salinization in lowland Hungary
Published: 2026-02-27
Subjects: Agriculture, Hydrology, Soil Science
Shallow groundwater in continental lowland environments sustains upward capillary fluxes that transport dissolved salts to the land surface. However, the depth below which this capillary-driven contribution becomes negligible, often parameterized as the extinction depth in groundwater model ET packages, has been treated as a static, soil-dependent parameter. We argue that salinization risk is [...]
Structural Shifts in Urban Air Pollution Patterns in Trinidad After COVID-19: Evidence from Diurnal and Weekday/Weekend PM Profiles, 2022-2024
Published: 2026-02-27
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The COVID-19 pandemic temporarily reduced air pollution by disrupting human mobility. This study tests whether particulate pollution patterns in Trinidad and Tobago underwent lasting structural change during the post-pandemic period 2022-2024. We analyse continuous PM₂.₅ and PM₁₀ observations from four Environmental Management Authority monitoring sites representing distinct source environments: [...]