Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Life Sciences
The Importance of Geospatial Technology in Monitoring Plant Health
Published: 2025-02-21
Subjects: Engineering, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Solving the problems presented by climate change depends on geospatial technology in great measure. Through shifting pest and disease dynamics, increasing frequency of extreme weather events, and modifying growth circumstances, climate change aggravates problems with plant health. For example, remote sensing data and satellite-based climate models help one to forecast how variations in [...]
Opuntia Invasion Risk and Management Strategies in China: A Comprehensive Review Under Climate Change Scenarios
Published: 2025-02-18
Subjects: Life Sciences
Including China, the genus Opuntia prickly pear cactus has grown to be a quite troublesome invading species in many different countries. With an eye toward Opuntia's ecological effects, present management practices, and suggestions for future control activities, this review assesses the possible distribution and invasion risk of the plant under climate change conditions. We investigate the [...]
Occurrence of tetraester and mixed ether/ester-bound iso-diabolic acid membrane-spanning lipids in mineral soils
Published: 2025-02-05
Subjects: Life Sciences
Branched glycerol dialkyl glycerol tetraethers (brGDGTs) are a suite of membrane lipids that are widely used as empirical proxies for past temperature and pH. Although the stereochemistry of their glycerol moiety suggests that they are produced by bacteria, the exact producers and the biosynthetic pathway of brGDGTs remain unclear. Here we report the occurrence of tetraester and mixed ester/ether [...]
Most Landfill Methane Emissions Escape Detection in EPA21 Surface Emission Monitoring Surveys
Published: 2025-02-05
Subjects: Engineering, Life Sciences
We measured emissions from ten landfills using mobile surveys and Surface Emission Monitoring (SEM) to determine what fraction of emissions that be identified by SEM surveys. Using mobile methane measurements and a back-trajectory attribution and rate estimation method, we measured overall site emissions and those of individual landfill components (active face, closed cells, leachate, etc). We [...]
Comprehensive Assessment of Flood Risk and Community Impact of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations in Iowa
Published: 2025-02-05
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, [...]
Evaluating the potential of underwater television to contribute to marine litter assessments alongside bottom trawling
Published: 2025-01-31
Subjects: Life Sciences
The role of information in shaping the emerging agricultural soil carbon market
Published: 2025-01-23
Subjects: Agriculture, Life Sciences
The agricultural soil carbon market that has emerged in recent years is widely regarded as a promising opportunity for farmers in the Global North and South, enabling them to generate carbon credits and derive a source of income from the adoption of alternative land management practices which contribute to climate change mitigation by increasing soil carbon sequestration and/or reducing [...]
The chitin raft hypothesis for the colonization of the open ocean by cyanobacteria
Published: 2025-01-08
Subjects: Life Sciences
It is often assumed planktonic cyanobacteria existed in Precambrian oceans, but that their productivity was constrained. However, available evidence suggests picocyanobacteria only colonized the open ocean near the Neoproterozoic-Phanerozoic boundary, close to the start of a period of sustained atmospheric oxygenation. If earlier open oceans were devoid of planktonic cyanobacteria, we lack [...]
Evolution of desalination research and water production in the Middle East: a five-decade perspective
Published: 2024-12-19
Subjects: Engineering, Life Sciences
Rapid urbanization and population growth, coupled with depleting groundwater reservoirs, have significantly increased reliance on desalination technologies in the arid Middle East, which accounts for nearly half (46%) of global desalination capacity. This large production volume has raised critical questions on the status of desalination research in this water-stressed region, and on whether it [...]
ESG mapping of the Australian mining sector – The state of play on mobilising spatial datasets for decision making
Published: 2024-12-19
Subjects: Life Sciences
The global energy transition will drive increased demand for a broad range of mined minerals.40 Australia is well positioned to support the global energy transition, given its mature mining sector41 and rich and diverse mineral resources. The potential growth in the mining sector represents an42 economic opportunity, however, navigating the associated environmental, social, and governance43 (ESG) [...]
Impact of data density and endmember definitions on long-term trends in ground cover fractions across European grasslands
Published: 2024-12-16
Subjects: Life Sciences
Long-term monitoring of grasslands is pivotal for ensuring continuity of many environmental services and for supporting food security and environmental modelling. Remote sensing provides an irreplaceable source of information for studying changes in grasslands. Specifically, Spectral Mixture Analysis (SMA) allows for quantification of physically meaningful ground cover fractions of grassland [...]
Spaceborne canopy height products should be complemented with airborne laser scanning data: Towards a European canopy height model
Published: 2024-12-04
Subjects: Life Sciences
Measuring and mapping vegetation structure is essential for understanding the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems and for informing environmental policies. Recent years have seen a growing demand for high-resolution data on vegetation structure, driving their prediction at fine resolutions (1 m - 30 m) at state, continental, and global spatial extents by combining satellite data with machine [...]
SiM: Satellite Image Mixed Pixel Deforestation Analysis in Optical Satellite for Land Use Land Cover Application
Published: 2024-11-15
Subjects: Education, Engineering, Life Sciences
Brazil’s deforestation monitoring integrates accuracy and current monitoring for land use and land cover applications. Regular monitoring of deforestation and non-deforestation requires Sentinel-2 multispectral satellite images of several bands at various frequencies, the mix of high- and low-resolution images that make object classification difficult because of the mixed pixel problem. Accuracy [...]
Fossil hypercalcified sponges; types, relationships and geological history
Published: 2024-11-12
Subjects: Life Sciences
Hypercalcified sponges are poriferans with a calcareous skeleton secreted on and in the soft tissue. Living examples and fossils of some such sponges in Mesozoic and Cenozoic strata contain sponge spicules and can be classified within modern poriferan groups of the Classes Demospongiae and Calcarea, which are otherwise almost entirely soft-bodied. However, other fossil forms, largely Palaeozoic [...]
Unravelling sustainable development at the sub-national scale in India
Published: 2024-11-07
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Studies, Life Sciences, Nature and Society Relations
India's diverse socioeconomic landscape and environmental challenges make it a complex case for implementing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Despite India's federal structure, comprehensive research on subnational SDG progress is lacking. This study analysed progress, challenges, interlinkages, and spatial disparities in individual and grouped SDGs (environmental, social, and [...]