Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Hydrology
Simulation of Groundwater Flow To Evaluate Hydrogeologic Controls on a PFAS Plume, Coakley Landfill Superfund Site, Rockingham County, New Hampshire
Published: 2026-04-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Sciences, Geology, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), including perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), have been detected at combined concentrations above 2,000 nanograms per liter (ng/L) at groundwater seep locations near the Coakley Landfill Superfund site, in North Hampton, New Hampshire. The landfill was active from 1972 to 1985. An impermeable cap was placed on the [...]
Multi-Sensor Monitoring of Wetland Inundation Using a Machine Learning and Data Fusion Framework
Published: 2026-04-04
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Statistics and Probability
Continuous, high-resolution inundation data are needed to understand how small-scale, short-term wetland flooding influences global methane emissions and carbon cycling. Small (less than 1,000 m²), variably inundated wetlands are significant methane sources, yet coarse satellite products often miss their dynamics. Integrating optical and radar imagery with resolutions less than 30 m offers a [...]
Spectral signatures in satellite soil moisture reveal irrigation patterns across the contiguous United States
Published: 2026-03-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Irrigation profoundly alters the terrestrial water cycle, yet its spatial distribution and temporal variability remain poorly constrained. Here, we introduce a new approach to detect irrigation in space based on spectral differences between modelled and satellite-observed soil moisture time series. Using wavelet decomposition, we isolate irrigation-induced variability at sub-annual scales by [...]
Do Less Predictable Tropical Cyclones Induce Larger Damages?
Published: 2026-03-17
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Hydrology, Meteorology, Statistical Models
Tropical cyclones (TCs) cause substantial disaster losses worldwide. Forecast skill for TC track and intensity has been improved by enhanced observations, high-resolution numerical models, advanced data assimilation methods, and applications of machine-learning methods. Yet these improvements have not consistently translated into reduced losses, in part because disaster outcomes depend on many [...]
Probabilistic modelling of pharmaceutical pollution risk from sewage treatment work discharges using a Bayesian Network: application to a Scottish river catchment
Published: 2026-03-16
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental Health, Statistical Models, Statistics and Probability, Water Resource Management
Pharmaceuticals are increasingly recognised as a class of emerging contaminants of concern in rivers. Their continuous release from human use and variable removal in sewage treatment works (STWs) can produce ecologically relevant concentrations and contribute to antimicrobial resistance. We developed a probabilistic catchment-scale model based on a Bayesian Network (BN) to quantify pharmaceutical [...]
A terrain-aware approach for image-based urban flood monitoring
Published: 2026-03-12
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Water Resource Management
Urban nuisance flooding is widespread, yet quantitative observations of its magnitude and spatial variability remain limited. Most image-based approaches provide only relative measures of flooded image fraction, while quantitative methods require surveyed ground control and three-dimensional reconstruction. We introduce a terrain aware, perspective weighted framework that converts flooded image [...]
Slope-dependent riverbed strengthening and the evolution of the threshold for motion in gravel-bed rivers
Published: 2026-03-10
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Hydrology
The threshold for motion exerts a fundamental control on sediment transport, channel morphology, and fluvial erosion. While channel slope and flow history are known to influence entrainment thresholds in gravel-bed rivers, their interaction has not been explored. We investigate how channel slope modulates riverbed strengthening during low-flow periods. Flume experiments were conducted across [...]
Estimation of the water table position in unconfined aquifers with MODFLOW 6
Published: 2026-03-10
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology, Water Resource Management
The numerical estimation of the position of the water table in unconfined aquifers is important for many practical applications. Its determination through observations or analytical methods is restricted to a few cases. Therefore, it is often estimated through numerical simulations, which may be affected by numerical artifacts and/or poor stability. We use MODFLOW to estimate the position of the [...]
Groundsource: A Dataset of Flood Events from News
Published: 2026-03-10
Subjects: Hydrology
AI learns to forecast global flood events from historical news
Published: 2026-03-09
Subjects: Hydrology
Validation of ICESat-2 ATL13 Version 7 Water Surface Elevation on Small High-Latitude Rivers: A Case Study of the River Dee and River Don, Aberdeenshire, Scotland
Published: 2026-03-07
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Hydrology, Remote Sensing, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Spatial Science
Satellite Laser Altimetry represents an attractive opportunity to supplement the sparsely distributed in situ gauge network used to monitor rivers. The performance of satellite laser altimetry on small, high latitude streams has however been characterized as being poor. This research will be validating ICESat-2 ATL13 version 7 measured water surface elevations (WSE) for the River Dee (average [...]
snowman: an open-source R package for automated 30-m snow and ice cover mapping using the Landsat archive
Published: 2026-03-06
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Glaciology, Hydrology, Water Resource Management
Seasonal snow and ice cover are critical components of the cryosphere yet mapping their dynamics at ecologically relevant spatiotemporal scales remains challenging. Here I present snowman, an open-source R package and algorithm for automated mapping of snow and ice cover dynamics at 30-m resolution using Landsat satellite imagery (1982–present). The algorithm combines globally trained [...]
Discharge Deficits in the Nepali Himalaya Linked to Greening and Warming
Published: 2026-03-05
Subjects: Hydrology
Anthropogenic climate change and rapid infrastructure development have drastically altered the hydrology of many watersheds, influencing the speed at which water is absorbed, stored, and distributed. In this work, we use long-term daily discharge records in the Nepali Himalaya alongside rainfall and snowmelt data to explore whether there have been large-scale shifts in the conversion of upstream [...]
Processing flaws and uneven Sentinel-1 coverage distort global flood trend interpretations
Published: 2026-03-04
Subjects: Hydrology
Mutual interactions between aquifer thermal energy storage and groundwater extraction: global sensitivity insights
Published: 2026-02-28
Subjects: Hydrology
Aquifer Thermal Energy Storage (ATES) is increasingly deployed in groundwater protection zones, motivating a quantitative assessment of thermal impacts on public-supply wells and the influence of supply-well pumping on ATES performance. In the Campine Basin (Belgium), we simulate three settings: balanced operation, seasonal imbalance, and multi-system deployment. Using a groundwater flow and [...]