Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
Soil Remineralization in Agroecological Systems: A Critical Review
Published: 2026-04-28
Subjects: Agriculture, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Soil degradation threatens global food security, human nutrition, biodiversity, water resources, and climate stability by depleting soil organic matter, exhausting nutrient reserves, and disrupting carbon and nitrogen cycles. Conventional input‑intensive agriculture has delivered yield gains but has also contributed to widespread micronutrient deficiencies, nutrient loading of waterways, soil [...]
Species specific mangrove habitat suitability and scenario dependent blue carbon modeling under uncertainty in Soc Trang Province, Vietnam
Published: 2026-04-26
Subjects: Engineering, Life Sciences
This study develops an integrated framework for species specific mangrove habitat suitability and scenario dependent blue carbon planning in Soc Trang Province, Vietnam. The spatial model translates ecological zonation evidence for 11 mangrove taxa into local rules based on coastal distance and elevation, then tests those rules across 19 spatial scenarios. The carbon model carries the resulting [...]
The biodiversity paradox: declining conservation discourse amid ecological crisis in global urban policies
Published: 2026-04-24
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Despite escalating biodiversity crises, conservation discourse in urban environmental policies has declined, revealing a governance paradox in which ecological urgency is inversely correlated with policy representation. We analyzed 202 urban environmental policies from 85 countries spanning 1984-2025 using computational text analysis (LDA, NMF, hierarchical clustering). The results reveal an [...]
From sectoral silos to climate hegemony: analysis of global urban policies (1984-2025)
Published: 2026-04-23
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Contemporary urban environmental governance faces a paradox: while international frameworks advocate integration, climate discourse appears to subsume. This study analyzed 202 urban policies from 85 countries (1984-2025) using various methods, temporal discourse analysis, keyword co-occurrence networks, framing detection, and sentiment analysis. Policies accelerated exponentially, with 2010-2025 [...]
Settling and Rising Dynamics of River Litter
Published: 2026-04-22
Subjects: Engineering, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Global assessments of river litter transport, accumulation, and export to the oceans remain constrained because the particle-scale hydrodynamic variables governing litter movement are currently unknown. We resolve this by explaining the vertical dynamics of full-scale river litter in quiescent water through multi-camera, three-dimensional trajectory reconstructions of over a thousand litter items [...]
A Meteorological Indicator for Particulate Matter Emissions: Adapting the Hot-Dry-Windy Index to Predict Feedlot Evening Dust Peaks
Published: 2026-04-21
Subjects: Agriculture, Animal Sciences, Bioresource and Agricultural Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Particulate matter emissions from cattle feedlot operations pose significant challenges to both livestock productivity and air quality in surrounding communities. The evening dust peak (EDP) has been documented for decades, but comprehensive long-term studies examining its meteorological drivers are very limited. While laboratory and field-scale investigations have demonstrated that feedlot [...]
Beyond universal access: mapping regional inequalities and spatial coldspots in India’s WaSH sector toward SDG 6
Published: 2026-04-17
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
National averages can conceal significant sectoral disparities and long-standing subnational injustices, despite the fact that India’s flagship programs had significantly improved access to water and sanitation. This report provided a thorough, data-driven evaluation of the water, sanitation, and hygiene (WaSH) in all 37 Indian states and union territories (UTs) using 25 indicators. Pearson’s [...]
Beyond national averages: a multi-method assessment of sub-national environmental sustainability and inequality in India
Published: 2026-04-17
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
India’s rapid economic growth regularly jeopardizes its environmental foundation, although important sub-national differences were typically hidden by national-level evaluations. For all 37 Indian states and union territories (UTs), this study creates the Composite index of Environmental Sustainability (CoES), a comprehensive multi-dimensional framework that integrates 36 indicators across 4 [...]
Geostatistical Assessment of Shallow Groundwater Risk in Urban Coastal Virginia: A Case Study from Virginia Beach
Published: 2026-04-14
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Geology, Hydrology, Life Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Water Resource Management
Urban groundwater assessments in coastal cities often rely on public monitoring datasets that are spatially uneven and temporally discontinuous. This study evaluates shallow groundwater risk in Virginia Beach, Virginia, using 30 years of records (1991–2020) from 121 monitoring wells for groundwater levels and 55 wells with groundwater‑quality data for chloride (Cl), iron (Fe), and manganese (Mn). [...]
Paleoarchean seawater and seafloor hydrothermal processes: insights from 3.5 to 3.3 Ga carbonate geochemistry
Published: 2026-04-13
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Carbonates (3.5 to 3.3 Ga) in the East Pilbara Terrane (EPT), Western Australia, including interstitial carbonate between pillow basalts, fracture-filling calcite, sedimentary carbonates and carbonate associated with stromatolites, provide valuable geochemical archives for reconstructing Early Earth environments. This study highlights three key findings: (1) Fracture-filling calcite D-2-W from [...]
Land-use change impacts on multidimensional well-being: insights from tropical forest frontiers in Madagascar, Myanmar and Laos
Published: 2026-04-13
Subjects: Life Sciences
Tropical forest frontiers are undergoing rapid land use change due to expanding global demands for agricultural commodities and conservation efforts. These changes profoundly affect the well-being of local populations, yet the pathways linking land use, ecosystem services, and well-being remain underexplored. This study examines these links across three forest frontier landscapes in Madagascar, [...]
Anthropogenic acceleration of the leaky nitrogen cycle across the global land-river continuum
Published: 2026-04-13
Subjects: Life Sciences
Lateral nitrogen transfer (LNT) along the land-river continuum plays a critical role in regulating global nitrogen (N) cycling and its feedbacks to climate, yet it remains poorly represented in land surface models. Here, we incorporate LNT into a global land surface model within an Earth System Model framework, enabling a process-based quantification of N transport, transformation, and associated [...]
From geochemical to biogeochemical cycles: an organizational view of how (and why) life shaped its conditions of existence
Published: 2026-04-09
Subjects: Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology, Biodiversity, Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Life Sciences
Since the seminal work of Maturana and Varela, the Organizational Approach (OA) has defended an organism-centered view of life. This paper argues that the OA must be extended to include the historical, ecological and geochemical processes that sustain biological systems across scales. We develop a multiscale account of closure of constraints (CoC) in which localized closures can emerge and [...]
Closure of Constraints in the Earth System: Biogeochemical Cycles and Planetary-Scale Biological Organisation
Published: 2026-04-06
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Life Sciences, Systems Biology
The concept of closure of constraints has been developed as a characterization of the distinctive causal regime at work in biological systems. Its extension to ecological systems has been attempted but faces persistent difficulties regarding the individuation of ecosystems and the scope of functional ascription. Meanwhile, the question of the biological character of the Earth system (variously [...]
A snag for nutrient fertilization: decoupled production and export
Published: 2026-03-28
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Microbiology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Interest in nutrient fertilization waned after inconclusive field experiments, but has resurged. Collating Southern Ocean \textit{in-situ} observations and available fertilization simulations, we find phytoplankton primary production and organic carbon export are uncorrelated in the largest high-nutrient-low-chlorophyll (HNLC) region, while model estimates cast doubt on realistic deployments [...]