Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Environmental Health and Protection
Wildfire influence on recent US pollution trends
Published: 2022-12-16
Subjects: Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Public Health, Environmental Studies
Steady improvements in ambient air quality in the US over the past several decades have led to large public health benefits. However, recent trends in PM2.5 concentrations, a key pollutant, have stagnated or begun to reverse throughout much of the US. We quantify the contribution of wildfire smoke to these trends and find that since 2016, wildfire smoke has significantly slowed or reversed [...]
Rapid estimation of climate-air quality interactions in integrated assessment using a response surface model
Published: 2022-09-15
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Public Health, Environmental Studies
Air quality and climate change are substantial and linked sustainability challenges, and there is a need for improved tools to assess the implications of addressing them in combination. High-fidelity chemistry-climate simulations can capture combined climate-air quality responses to policy change, but computational cost has prevented integration of accurate air quality impacts into integrated [...]
Generation of Reproducible Model Freshwater Particulate Matter Analogues to Study the Interaction with Particulate Contaminants.
Published: 2022-08-31
Subjects: Environmental Chemistry, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Sciences, Fresh Water Studies
Aquatic fate models and risk assessment require experimental information on the potential of contaminants to interact with riverine suspended particulate matter (SPM). While for dissolved contaminants partition or sorption coefficients are used, the underlying assumption of chemical equilibrium is invalid for particulate contaminants, such as engineered nanomaterials, incidental nanoparticles, [...]
Climate stress and its impact on livestock health, farming livelihoods and antibiotic use in Karnataka, India
Published: 2022-06-17
Subjects: Agriculture, Environmental Health and Protection, Other Earth Sciences
Understanding the impact of climate change on livestock health is critical to safeguarding global food supplies and economies. Informed by ethnographic research with Indian farmers, veterinarians, and poultry industry representatives, we evidence that both precipitation and vapour pressure are key climate variables that relate to outbreaks of haemorrhagic septicaemia (HS), anthrax (AX), and black [...]
The quest for the missing plastics: Large uncertainties in river plastic export into the sea
Published: 2022-05-16
Subjects: Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Studies, Hydrology
Plastic pollution in the natural environment is causing increasing concern at both the local and global scale. Understanding the dispersion of plastic through the environment is of key importance for the effective implementation of preventive measures and cleanup strategies. Over the past few years, various models have been developed to estimate the transport of plastics in rivers, using limited [...]
Global biomass fires and infant mortality
Published: 2022-04-16
Subjects: Environmental Health and Protection, Physical and Environmental Geography, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Global outdoor biomass burning is a major contributor to air pollution, especially in low and middle-income countries. Recent years have witnessed substantial changes in the extent of biomass burning, including large declines in Africa. However, direct evidence on the contribution of biomass burning to global health outcomes remains limited. Here we use georeferenced data on more than 2 million [...]
Two decades of changing anthropogenic mercury emissions in Australia: inventory development, trends, and atmospheric implications
Published: 2022-01-27
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Biogeochemistry, Environmental Health and Protection
Mercury is a toxic environmental pollutant emitted into the atmosphere by both natural and anthropogenic sources. In Australia, previous estimates of anthropogenic mercury emissions differ by up to a factor of three, with existing inventories either outdated or inaccurate and several lacking Australia-specific input data. Here, we develop a twenty-year inventory of Australian anthropogenic [...]
Initial estuarine response to the nutrient-rich Piney Point release into Tampa Bay, Florida
Published: 2022-01-05
Subjects: Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring
From March 30th to April 9th, 2021, 814 million liters of legacy phosphate mining wastewater and marine dredge water from the Piney Point facility were released into lower Tampa Bay (Florida, USA). This resulted in an estimated addition of 186 metric tons of total nitrogen, exceeding typical annual external nitrogen load estimates to lower Tampa Bay in a matter of days. Elevated levels of [...]
Reproducibility in subsurface geoscience
Published: 2021-10-26
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Cosmochemistry, Earth Sciences, Environmental Education, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Geomorphology, Geophysics and Seismology, Glaciology, Hydrology, Mineral Physics, Natural Resource Economics, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Paleobiology, Paleontology, Sedimentology, Soil Science, Speleology, Stratigraphy, Sustainability, Tectonics and Structure, Volcanology, Water Resource Management
Reproducibility, the extent to which consistent results are obtained when an experiment or study is repeated, sits at the foundation of science. The aim of this process is to produce robust findings and knowledge, with reproducibility being the screening tool to benchmark how well we are implementing the scientific method. However, the re-examination of results from many disciplines has caused [...]
Safety and Belonging in the Field: A Checklist for Educators
Published: 2021-08-19
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Biogeochemistry, Climate, Cosmochemistry, Earth Sciences, Education, Environmental Education, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Fresh Water Studies, Geochemistry, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Geology, Geomorphology, Geophysics and Seismology, Glaciology, Higher Education, Human Geography, Hydrology, Life Sciences, Meteorology, Mineral Physics, Natural Resource Economics, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Nature and Society Relations, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Other Geography, Other Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Planetary Sciences, Outdoor Education, Paleobiology, Paleontology, Physical and Environmental Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Planetary Biogeochemistry, Planetary Geochemistry, Planetary Geology, Planetary Geomorphology, Planetary Geophysics and Seismology, Planetary Glaciology, Planetary Hydrology, Planetary Mineral Physics, Planetary Sciences, Planetary Sedimentology, Remote Sensing, Sedimentology, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Soil Science, Spatial Science, Speleology, Stratigraphy, Sustainability, Tectonics and Structure, Volcanology, Water Resource Management
Ensuring taught fieldwork is a positive, generative, collective, and valuable experience for all participants requires considerations beyond course content. To guarantee safety and belonging, participants’ identities (backgrounds and protected characteristics) must be considered as a part of fieldwork planning and implementation. Furthermore, getting fieldwork right is an important step in [...]
Multidimensional simulation of PFAS transport and leaching in the vadose zone: impact of surfactant-induced flow and soil heterogeneities
Published: 2021-06-30
Subjects: Environmental Health and Protection, Hydrology, Soil Science
PFAS are emergent contaminants of which fate and transport in the environment remain poorly understood. As surfactants, adsorption at air-water interfaces and solid surfaces in soils complicates the retention and leaching of PFAS in the vadose zone. Recent modeling studies accounting for the PFAS-specific nonlinear adsorption processes predicted that the majority of long-chain PFAS remain in the [...]
Upstream oil and gas production and ambient air pollution in California
Published: 2021-04-14
Subjects: Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Public Health, Oil, Gas, and Energy
Background. Prior studies have found that residential proximity to upstream oil and gas production is associated with increased risk of adverse health outcomes. Emissions of ambient air pollutants from oil and gas wells in the preproduction and production stages have been proposed as conferring risk of adverse health effects, but the extent of air pollutant emissions and resulting nearby [...]
Global climate-driven trade-offs between the water retention and cooling benefits of urban greening
Published: 2021-02-23
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Construction Engineering and Management, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
Heat-related mortality and flooding are pressing challenges for the >4 billion urban population worldwide, exacerbated by increasing urbanization and climate change. Urban greening, such as green roofs and parks, can potentially help address both problems, but the geographical variation of the relative hydrological and thermal performance benefits of such interventions are unknown. Here we [...]
Regional disparities and seasonal differences in climate risk to rice labour
Published: 2021-01-21
Subjects: Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment
The 880 million agricultural workers of the world are especially vulnerable to increasing heat stress due to climate change, affecting the health of individuals and reducing labour productivity. In this study, we focus on rice harvests across Asia and estimate the future impact on labour productivity by considering changes in climate at the time of the annual harvest. During these specific times [...]
A machine learning approach for prioritizing groundwater testing for per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)
Published: 2020-10-19
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Monitoring, Geochemistry, Hydrology, Risk Analysis, Water Resource Management
Regulatory agencies are beginning to recognize and regulate per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) as concerning environmental contaminants. In groundwater management, testing and mitigation strategies are desirable, but can be time and cost-intensive processes. As a result, only a fraction of all groundwater wells has been tested for PFAS levels, resulting in potentially extended drinking [...]