Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Engineering
Harnessing naturally occurring sodium carbonate and bicarbonate for gigatonne-scale carbon dioxide removal
Published: 2026-03-06
Subjects: Engineering
Ocean alkalinity enhancement is a promising carbon dioxide removal (CDR) approach, but scaling up to gigatonnes (Gt) of CO2 per year will require safe, sustainable, and abundant alkaline feedstocks. Here, we propose the use of a relatively unexplored resource for OAE, namely naturally occurring sodium (bi)carbonates. We identified and mapped 109 such deposits globally, although quantitative [...]
From environmental observation to shared narratives through human-AI interaction
Published: 2026-03-06
Subjects: Education, Engineering, Social and Behavioral Sciences
A structural bottleneck limits sustainability practices: many people can participate in environmental observation, but far fewer can participate in the synthesis work that turns observations into shared narratives that guide action. We term this disparity "synthesis inequality". Citizen-science programs have expanded public access to data collection, yet data interpretation largely remains [...]
Hydrological modeling in a highly urbanized watershed using explainable machine learning and sub-hourly data: A case study in the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil
Published: 2026-03-04
Subjects: Engineering
Hydrological modeling of urbanized watersheds is a highly challenging task due to the complexity and non-linearity of the rainfall-runoff relationship in these areas. Many data-driven models have been proposed in the literature to address this problem. However, in this field, there is a need not only for performance but also for explainability and comprehension of the impacts of [...]
vathra.xyz — Crowdsourced Monitoring of Greece's Geodetic Heritage: Architecture, Empirical Results, and Legal Framework
Published: 2026-03-04
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Engineering, Other Earth Sciences, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Greece's national trigonometric network comprises 25,258 geodetic survey points established by the Hellenic Military Geographical Service (HMGS/GYS). This paper presents vathra.xyz, an open-source web platform for crowdsourced condition monitoring of these points using Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI) methods. We describe the system architecture (React, PostGIS, Leaflet, browser-based AR [...]
High-resolution interactive global flood forecast for past, present, and future
Published: 2026-03-04
Subjects: Engineering
Globally operating modelling approaches for flood dynamics have shown significant increases in usage, quality and availability in recent years. Flood modelling at global scale stretches the computational demand, due to combinations of spatial scale and resolution, limiting to static pre-computed maps and prohibiting interactivity. Particular high-resolution global models are only available as [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
A Scalable Borehole Thermometry Framework for Process-Based Monitoring of Near-Surface Thermal Dynamics Across Polar and High-Mountain Cryosphere Systems
Published: 2026-02-25
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physics
Rapid climate warming is fundamentally altering the thermal structure and stability of glaciers, ice sheets, and ice shelves across polar and high-mountain environments. While satellite remote sensing and surface meteorological networks provide essential observations of atmospheric forcing and surface conditions, the near-surface subsurface layer (approximately 0–3 m depth)—where energy is [...]
Real-time Forecasting and Operational Control of Perceivable Induced Seismicity in Geo-Energies
Published: 2026-02-25
Subjects: Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Geo-energies, including enhanced geothermal systems, geological carbon storage, and underground hydrogen storage, are essential for decarbonizing the energy and heavy industry sectors. However, their widespread implementation is hindered by the risk of perceivable induced seismicity. This review begins by evaluating existing seismic hazard mitigation schemes, particularly the traffic light system [...]
Sub-pixel mapping of disturbance and tree mortality dynamics from Sentinel-2 time series around the globe
Published: 2026-02-24
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Biogeochemistry, Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Elevated forest disturbances and excess tree mortality are increasingly reported worldwide. Yet existing assessments are either based on patchy terrestrial observations or on large-scale satellite products, which are limited in resolution to pixel-level, binary tree loss detection. This leaves a blind spot on fine-scale disturbances where only a few trees are declining in an otherwise intact [...]
Machine Learning and Explainable AI for Agricultural Drought Prediction: A Comparative Analysis of Gradient Boosting Methods Using Multi-Source Earth Observation Data
Published: 2026-02-21
Subjects: Agriculture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Life Sciences
Drought monitoring and prediction remain critical challenges in climate science and agricultural management, particularly under accelerating climate change. This study presents a comprehensive machine learning framework for drought susceptibility mapping in Iowa, USA, using multi-source Earth observation data and explainable artificial intelligence. We systematically evaluated eleven supervised [...]
Directional Peak Factors of Strong-Motion Response Spectra: A Stochastic Field Representation on the Circle
Published: 2026-02-20
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Engineering, Structural Engineering
Directional variability in horizontal earthquake ground motions is often addressed using orientation-independent intensity measures obtained by rotating the two horizontal components and summarizing the resulting response spectra. In contrast, the stochastic structure of directional peak factors, which connect second-order response measures to extreme response levels, has received limited [...]
Evaluating economic opportunities and challenges for energy recovery from methane leaks during wastewater treatment
Published: 2026-02-13
Subjects: Engineering, Environmental Engineering
Methane leaks from wastewater treatment represent the loss of biogas that can be used to generate onsite energy, offsetting costs and improving efficiency. Here, we characterize emissions from water resource recovery facilities by compiling measurement data and calculating biogas-production normalized leak rates for facilities with anaerobic digestion. For plants where biogas data were [...]
End-to-End Differentiable Auto-Calibration of a Distributed Glacio-Hydrological Model Using Physically Consistent Routing
Published: 2026-02-13
Subjects: Engineering
Distributed glacio-hydrological models are essential for simulating runoff processes in glacier-fed Himalayan basins, yet their application is often constrained by extensive data requirements, high computational costs, and reliance on manual, trial-and-error calibration. Recent auto-calibration approaches using stochastic optimization or machine learning have shown promise, but they frequently [...]