Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Other Environmental Sciences
Parcel-Level Deforestation Hazard Rates in the Paraguayan Chaco: A Multi-Scale Empirical Analysis of Annual Clearing Dynamics on Large Cattle Ranches
Published: 2026-10-04
Subjects: Geographic Information Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing
Cattle ranch expansion across the Paraguayan Chaco generates parcel-level clearing rates that appear inconsistent with regional deforestation statistics, raising concerns that REDD+ baselines constructed from proxy parcels overstate forest loss (a baseline over-crediting debate that turns on denominator consistency between parcel hazard and regional flows). Because parcels undergoing active [...]
Model-Based Assessment of Geogenic Radon Exposure in Chaco Canyon and Adjacent Ancestral Puebloan Residential Settings
Published: 2026-09-29
Subjects: Environmental Chemistry, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Public Health, Geochemistry, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Other Physics, Paleontology, Sustainability
Naturally occurring radon-222 and its short-lived alpha-emitting progeny are important sources of environmental radioactivity in enclosed, earth-contact spaces, yet their potential relevance to archaeological built environments has rarely been quantified. Here we evaluate chronic radon exposure in Chaco Canyon, where Ancestral Pueblo people occupied earth-contact and semi-subterranean rooms [...]
Assessing Challenges for U.S.-Based Polar Early Career Scientists During Science Policy Changes
Published: 2026-09-13
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Environmental Studies, Geography, Glaciology, Hydraulic Engineering, Nature and Society Relations, Other Environmental Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Early-career researchers (ECRs) play a critical role in sustaining polar and cryosphere research in the United States. Since January 2025, changes in U.S. science policy and federal research funding have created substantial uncertainty for researchers, particularly those in the early stages of their careers. To assess the impacts of these changes, we conducted a community-driven survey of [...]
The Vulnerability Spiral: Compound Climate Risk Across Five Islands
Published: 2026-09-05
Subjects: Biodiversity, Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Geomorphology, Hydrology, International and Area Studies, Marine Biology, Natural Resource Economics, Nature and Society Relations, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Environmental Sciences, Other Geography, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science, Statistical Methodology, Statistical Models, Sustainability
Low islands face two threats at once: the sea rising, and the reefs and mangroves that buffer it weakening. I measured both across 5 island groups in 3 ocean basins (Maldives, Lakshadweep, Seychelles, Fiji and the Canary Islands), testing mangroves and coral reefs as separate pathways. Exposure is the share of people (WorldPop 2020) living on land at or below 1 m, on a bare earth elevation model [...]
Spatial Recognition Justice: Integrating Participatory Mapping and Discrete Choice Experiment to Elicit Ecosystem Service Values
Published: 2026-08-21
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Geographic Information Sciences, Nature and Society Relations, Other Environmental Sciences, Spatial Science
Nature-based solutions (NBS) have become a central component of climate adaptation and sustainability agendas in many cities. Yet NBS implementation increasingly faces opposition from residents. As NBS fail to consider diverse needs, values, and priorities of different population segments, they fall short from a recognition justice perspective. This study provides a systematic assessment of [...]
Moving fast without breaking things: The benefits of preprinting for CDR research
Published: 2026-08-05
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences
Advocates of preprinting usually focus on its benefits to individual researchers — more feedback, citations, and visibility. We argue its greater value is collective: preprinting improves scientific coordination, which the carbon dioxide removal field needs in order to move fast without sacrificing rigor.
Three-Dimensional Modeling of the Underground Mineral Extraction Process: A Dynamic Three-Dimensional Model of Underground Mining Space
Published: 2026-08-04
Subjects: Geotechnical Engineering, Mining Engineering, Natural Resource Economics, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Other Environmental Sciences
Three-dimensional models of underground space are a core component of digital twins of mining enterprises. The fundamental requirement for such models is that they must be dynamic — accurately reflecting the current state of their physical counterpart at each moment in time. When developing large underground bedded mineral deposits (coal, potash), the mined horizon constitutes a continuously [...]
Rapid Fault Leakage Screening for CO₂ Storage Under Uncertainty: Application to a Faulted Miocene Aquifer in the Malay Basin
Published: 2026-07-22
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Other Engineering, Other Environmental Sciences, Transport Phenomena
Geological CO2 storage is critical for mitigating climate change, yet the risk of leakage along faults poses significant challenges. Faults function as structural traps or preferential CO2 migration pathways depending on their sealing capacity. This study applies a computationally efficient rapid fault leakage analysis tool that combines a vertically integrated reservoir model with an upscaled [...]
A pipeline for representing buildings as fuels in wildland urban fire spread and risk modeling
Published: 2026-07-09
Subjects: Categorical Data Analysis, Databases and Information Systems, Engineering, Geographic Information Sciences, Mechanical Engineering, Nature and Society Relations, Other Engineering, Other Environmental Sciences, Other Mechanical Engineering, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physical and Environmental Geography, Risk Analysis, Software Engineering, Spatial Science
Wildfires pose an increasing risk to structures and communities located adjacent to or among vegetative landscapes. Yet most open landscape-scale fire modeling workflows still lack a reproducible way to represent buildings as combustible fuels rather than only as exposed assets or nonburnable developed land. This paper presents FireDX, a geospatial data engine that generates standardized, [...]
A Phanerozoic Atlas of Earth’s Atmosphere, Surface, and Interior Derived from the PANALESIS Plate Tectonic Model
Published: 2026-06-22
Subjects: Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geology, Other Environmental Sciences, Tectonics and Structure
Reconstructing the Earth system evolution through deep time requires spatially consistent, multi‑layer datasets that integrate geological, geophysical, and climatic information. Here we present a unified, high‑resolution (10×10km) global dataset describing the Earth’s evolution over the past 545 million years. This atlas provides 45 time slices spanning the Phanerozoic, each including quantified [...]
Less is more: how to capture carbon efficiently – lessons from long-term rock weathering and soil development in natural warm temperate ecosystems.
Published: 2026-06-15
Subjects: Other Environmental Sciences
Enhanced rock weathering (ERW) has been proposed as a viable strategy to offset greenhouse gas emissions. The field is currently plagued by uncertainty in the rates of C capture through alkalinity export, resulting from variation in extent and lag due to soil exchange, secondary minerals, and effects on soil organic carbon. Provided are quantitative estimates for weathering losses in these pools [...]
Carbon Dioxide Removal Supply Curves: A Multi-Model Assessment
Published: 2026-06-10
Subjects: Other Environmental Sciences
Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is widely recognised as essential for pathways consistent with the Paris Climate Agreement. Yet the cost-dependent potential of CDR options, given resource competition, remains uncertain. Here we present CDR-supply curves assessing a range of CDR options across carbon price levels using five Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) for 2035, 2050 and 2100. At 400 (200) $ [...]
Subsurface advective flow unveils the architecture of Earth’s crustal biosphere
Published: 2026-06-09
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Geology, Microbiology, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences
The subsurface biosphere is one of Earth’s largest microbial reservoirs, yet its spatial extent remains poorly constrained due to limited direct access. Here we propose using the integrated environmental readouts encoded in deep subsurface fluids to shift from simply mapping where life can be detected to constraining where life can exist. Deeply-sourced advective fluids provide an integrated [...]
Polar ice-cores unravel the formation of a UV window during magnetic field collapse ~ 42 ka BP
Published: 2026-05-08
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
During geomagnetic excursions (GEs), compromised magnetic field and increased cosmic-ray bombardment can deplete the ozone layer forming ‘UV window(s)’ in the Earth’s atmosphere. Here, using triple sulfur-isotope systematics in polar ice-core sulfate record spanning 600 years of the Laschamp GE, we provide direct evidence of the formation of a UV window. Several events of UV-induced anomalous [...]
Croplands as thermodynamic agents in a high-CO2 world
Published: 2026-04-28
Subjects: Other Environmental Sciences
Rising atmospheric CO2 is widely expected to influence crops through physiological pathways, yet croplands are also extensive physical interfaces that regulate land–atmosphere energy exchange. Despite covering 12–15% of Earth’s ice-free land surface, their role in surface energy balance under elevated CO2 remains poorly constrained. Most CO2 enrichment studies have not explicitly resolved the [...]