Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Engineering
Spatial Predictor Selection for Next-Day Minimum Temperature Forecasting: An Automated Machine Learning Framework Applied Across European Climate Regimes
Published: 2026-01-06
Subjects: Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Accurate prediction of daily minimum temperature (Tmin) is critical for frost protection, energy management, and public health preparedness. While numerical weather prediction models have improved substantially, their performance for Tmin forecasting remains limited by difficulties in representing fine-scale nocturnal processes. This study presents an automated framework for identifying optimal [...]
Spectral indices outperform AlphaEarth foundation embeddings for aboveground biomass estimation in tropical Andean Forests
Published: 2026-01-06
Subjects: Education, Engineering
Rising greenhouse gas emissions, particularly carbon dioxide (CO₂), are accelerating climate change. Forests are an important carbon store, but measuring how much carbon is stored in large tracts of diverse forests is challenging. Satellite imagery provides consistent measures of forests across space and time, which is an opportunity for accurate estimation of forest aboveground biomass (AGB), [...]
Temperature effect on performance and methane emissions of highly controlled replicate septic tanks
Published: 2025-12-30
Subjects: Engineering
Septic tanks are widely used for decentralized wastewater treatment but remain poorly characterized with respect to greenhouse-gas emissions, particularly under variable temperature regimes. Understanding how temperature influences treatment performance and methane production is essential for improving both emission inventories and environmental sustainability through tailored mitigation [...]
Liquefaction as an energetic instability of saturated granular systems – Density control and static enthalpy equilibrium
Published: 2025-12-27
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Geophysics and Seismology, Geotechnical Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology, Materials Science and Engineering, Mining Engineering, Other Materials Science and Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology
Liquefaction of saturated granular materials is commonly interpreted within stress-based frameworks that rely on the existence of an intact grain skeleton. At the onset of liquefaction, however, the contact network collapses and effective stress ceases to be a meaningful state variable. This work reformulates liquefaction as an enthalpy-driven instability of the coupled grain–water system and [...]
Comprehensive Assessment of Flood Risk and Community Impact of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations in Iowa
Published: 2025-12-27
Subjects: Agriculture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering, Life Sciences
Flooding presents a significant risk to Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), especially in regions increasingly affected by extreme weather events. This study uses advanced geospatial analysis techniques to assess the environmental and economic vulnerabilities of 12,703 CAFOs across Iowa, United States. We focused on the exposure of CAFOS to 100-year and 500-year floodplains, [...]
Community-Oriented Data Integration and Communication Framework for Streamflow Forecast Models and Flood Inundation Map Products
Published: 2025-12-24
Subjects: Civil Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering, Water Resource Management
Access to critical flood risk information is often limited by expert-driven workflows that require specialized software, representing a barrier to stakeholder engagement and effective science communication. This study presents a generalized web-based framework that integrates federal datasets for real-time scenario-based flood forecasting and mapping at the CONUS scale. By leveraging [...]
Spatial Clustering and Reservoir Analysis: An Expert-Guided Synergy Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) Machine Learning Technique on Volve and Norne Fields
Published: 2025-12-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Engineering, Geology, Geotechnical Engineering, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology
This study introduces an expert-guided application for clustering production wells using Machine Learning (ML), focusing on the Volve and Norne Field datasets to optimise reservoir analysis and decision-making. The Dynamic Time Warping (DTW) algorithm was employed for clustering and further enhanced by spatial visualisation through Voronoi polygons on topographic maps. The study presents a [...]
A Rapid Analytical Method for Predicting Injection Rates in Heterogeneous Reservoirs
Published: 2025-12-16
Subjects: Engineering
Maximum injection rate is a key criterion when screening subsurface hydrocarbon reservoirs or aquifers for possible EOR schemes or storage of hydrocarbon gas, hydrogen or carbon dioxide. It has to be high enough to achieve desired rates without risking the formation fracturing. Screening requires evaluation of thousands or millions of potential injection sites to identify those with favourable [...]
A scoping review of spatiotemporal ConvLSTM applications for predicting water balance components
Published: 2025-12-10
Subjects: Engineering
Deep learning is renewing computational hydrology by offering advanced capabilities for modeling complex environmental processes characterized by spatiotemporal variability. Among these approaches, the Convolutional Long Short-Term Memory (ConvLSTM) network has gained considerable attention for its ability to learn spatial and temporal dependencies simultaneously, a feature particularly valuable [...]
Web-Based Dynamic Flood Susceptibility Mapping: Leveraging Fuzzy Logic for Interactive Analysis
Published: 2025-12-05
Subjects: Engineering
Flooding is one of the most frequent and devastating natural disasters, resulting in significant global social, environmental, and economic consequences. Performing comprehensive flood risk assessments is essential for comprehending community exposure and susceptibility to floods while facilitating the formulation of mitigation plans. This study presents a web-based framework for flood [...]
Computation to Choose a Future: Planetary Stewardship in the Age of AI
Published: 2025-11-26
Subjects: Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The accelerating transformations of the Anthropocene demand governance systems capable of anticipating and steering complex, nonlinear Earth-system dynamics. Existing models optimize for likely trajectories rather than exploring a broader set of futures. This commentary introduces the concept of Computational Foresight (CF): an integrative framework combining artificial intelligence, simulation, [...]
Barrier vulnerability following outwash: A balance of overwash and dune gap recovery
Published: 2025-11-23
Subjects: Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Existing barrier evolution models only simulate storm impacts from landward-driven flows (overwash), neglecting the impacts of seaward-directed flows (outwash). Here, we modify an existing model to incorporate outwash processes. We find that outwash enhances barrier vulnerability (the tendency to drown) over decadal timescales by scarring the island interior, creating lower, narrower landforms. [...]
MiniSat: Prototype for Geological and Environmental Monitoring Using Low-Cost Embedded Systems with RF Communication
Published: 2025-11-22
Subjects: Engineering
This review paper presents a concise analysis of Minisat-based geological monitoring systems that combine low-cost embedded platforms with RF communication technologies. It highlights recent advances in miniaturized satellites and compact sensor nodes that enable affordable, continuous environmental monitoring. The paper reviews key components including embedded electronics, sensor integration, [...]
Attention-Based Deep Learning for Runoff Forecasting: Evaluating the Temporal Fusion Transformer Against Traditional Machine Learning Models
Published: 2025-11-20
Subjects: Engineering, Life Sciences
Reliable runoff forecasting is critical for water management and flood preparedness in Nepal’s steep, data-scarce catchments. Traditional models such as SWAT provide process insights but demand extensive calibration and detailed inputs often unavailable in such regions. Recent advances in attentionbased deep learning offer new opportunities to capture temporal dependencies with improved [...]
Thermal Power and Climate Change: A Data-Driven Analysis of Cause and Effect, 1800-2100
Published: 2025-11-20
Subjects: Education, Engineering, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Since 2020, global politics have shifted sharply to the right—nowhere more visibly than in the United States and Europe. By 2024, this rightward turn in the U.S. culminated in open climate-change denial, the defunding of clean-energy initiatives, and a widespread rejection of scientific evidence. Major domestic and international institutions—NOAA, NASA, the U.S. Weather Bureau, EPA, USDA, FDA, [...]