Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Civil and Environmental Engineering
Liquefaction as an energetic instability of saturated granular systems – Density control and static enthalpy equilibrium
Published: 2025-12-28
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 [...]
Spatial Patterns of Glacier Meltwater and Mountain Wetland Connectivity in the Peruvian Andes
Published: 2025-12-28
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Hydrology, Statistical Models
High-altitude wetlands are critical ecosystems that store water, regulate downstream flows, and sustain biodiversity. Their persistence is tightly linked to continuous water inputs from precipitation, groundwater, snow and glacier melt, making them highly vulnerable to climate-driven shifts in mountain hydrology. Rapid glacier retreat, altered precipitation regimes, and rising temperatures are [...]
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, [...]
Adapting Caspian Sea ports to climate-induced water level declines: The case of Aktau
Published: 2025-12-20
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering
The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water. It is critical for regional trade through the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route (TITR), which links South-East Asia and China to Europe. Aktau Port in Kazakhstan is strategically important, located on key international transport routes like the TITR. Over the past 30 years, the Caspian Sea’s water levels have dropped from [...]
Climate Network Analysis of Precipitation Regimes from WorldClim Data in Saudi Arabia
Published: 2025-12-13
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Geography, Risk Analysis
Saudi Arabia is shaped by a hydroclimatic gradient, from the hyper-arid Rub’ al-Khali desert to the semi-arid mountains in the southwest. This gradient affects runoff generation, groundwater recharge, and drought risk, yet most studies still summarize rainfall using basic statistics from station data or gridded products. This research applies climate network analysis to identify coherent rainfall [...]
Analysis of Water Point Management and Maintenance Systems in Tropical Environments: Case Study of Okola Municipality (Cameroon, Central Africa)
Published: 2025-12-07
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering
Rural water infrastructure sustainability in Sub-Saharan Africa is significantly hindered by weak management and maintenance systems. This study assessed water point governance in Okola Municipality, Cameroon, to identify factors affecting infrastructure sustainability and evaluate maintenance practices. Using a mixed-methods approach—field observations, household surveys (n = 80), and interviews [...]
Where is the Evidence? A Global Systematic Review of Sanitation System Resilience
Published: 2025-11-21
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering
Despite sustained efforts over several decades, no region is projected to achieve universal sanitation access by 2030, according to international monitoring frameworks. Climate change is increasingly disrupting human and ecological systems, in turn deepening existing inequalities in access to essential services, including sanitation. Coupled with broader socio-economic and political dynamics, [...]
A Static Enthalpy Equilibrium Approach to the Stability of Saturated Sands (Version 2)
Published: 2025-10-26
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Construction Engineering and Management, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Geotechnical Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering, Mineral Physics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology
This preprint presents a physical formulaton for the stability of saturated granular systems based on a static enthalpy equilibrium. The approach definnes equilibrium as the balance between the gravitationel potential of the granular framework and the hydraulic work of the pore water. From this energetic condition, the limit state and the transition between stable, metastable, and liquefied [...]
Climate as the Primary Moderator: Towards Context-Driven Design and Implementation of Vertical Greenery Systems for Stormwater Management
Published: 2025-10-24
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering
Urbanisation intensifies stormwater management challenges by expanding impervious surfaces, increasing flood risk and degrading water quality. Vertical Greenery Systems (VGS) are increasingly promoted as nature-based solutions for space-constrained cities, yet their performance remains highly variable and context-dependent. This systematic review, conducted in accordance with PRISMA guidelines [...]
Smart Urban Design with Physics-Informed Neural Networks: Quantifying Temperature Reductions from Green Infrastructure Using Satellite Thermal Data
Published: 2025-10-20
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computer Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Engineering
Urban Heat Islands (UHIs), characterised by elevated temperatures in densely built environments, pose critical challenges to urban sustainability, public health, and energy resilience. Mitigating UHIs requires precise quantification of the cooling effects of green infrastructure; however, existing models often fail to integrate high-resolution geospatial data with physical laws. This study [...]
The African Transport Systems Database: an open geospatial database of multi-modal connected networks
Published: 2025-09-30
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Transportation Engineering
We present the first comprehensive geolocated multi-modal transport database for the whole continent of Africa, the African Transport Systems Database (AfTS-Db), including road, rail, aviation, maritime and inland waterway networks. To do so, we created and standardized asset and network data across all transport modes, including inter-modal connections, attributes of road and rail corridors and [...]
Water recharge, hydrological processes, and surface water quality through Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) in streams of the Ilaló volcano.
Published: 2025-09-28
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering
In the Ilaló volcano, water supplied the Valle de los Chillos and Tumbaco to the south of the capital of Ecuador. Mamatena and Kanguil Uku are two water sources, and for approximately 40 years, there has been a pipeline for domestic and irrigation use. The main objectives were to identify the water recharge areas, characterize the groundwater flow lines, and determine the percentage of losses due [...]
A Sensitivity Analysis Approach to Identifying Drivers of Streamflow Hysteresis
Published: 2025-09-28
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering
We study the critical interplay between streamflow hysteresis and local hydro-morphologic conditions. Hysteresis strength, which can lead to over 60% errors in discharge estimation with widely accepted monitoring methods, is primarily influenced by local characteristics such as bed slope, roughness, and event wave intensity. Our study used a 1D numerical model to highlight the hysteresis response [...]
A Critical Review of Nature-Based Solutions for Enhancing Climate Resilience and Water Security in Mountain Ecosystems
Published: 2025-09-24
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering
Mountain ecosystems, functioning as indispensable "water towers," face escalating threats from climate change, land degradation, and water insecurity, jeopardizing the livelihoods of downstream populations. This paper presents a comprehensive critical review of integrated strategies designed to enhance the resilience of these vital socio-ecological systems. It synthesizes the theoretical [...]
Unreliable Results of a Commercial Real-Time Water Quality Sensor in Identifying Fecal Contamination of Drinking Water
Published: 2025-09-20
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering
Low-cost technologies are increasingly being explored and marketed as capable of filling gaps in global water quality monitoring (WQM), especially in resource-limited settings. This study evaluates a commercially available, low-cost triboelectric-based sensor that is marketed for real-time detection of E. coli in drinking and environmental waters. A result of 0 indicates contaminated water, [...]