Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment
Reducing RES Droughts through the integration of wind and PV
Published: 2025-02-07
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Power and Energy
Increasing the share of electricity produced from renewable energy sources (RES), combined with RES dependence on weather, poses a critical challenge for energy systems. This study investigates the importance of the balance between wind and photovoltaic (PV) capacity on periods of low renewable generation, known as RES droughts. Three different RES models are used to estimate the capacity factors [...]
Evaluating coastal multifunctionality: sand nourishment strategies at decadal timescales
Published: 2025-02-07
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment
Globally, there is a growing societal need for multifunctional coastal climate adaptation of sandy shores in the coming decades. Sand nourishment strategies are increasingly regarded as promising nature-based approaches, as they may increase flood safety and mitigate erosion while enhancing recreational and ecological functioning. However, their multifunctional potential has not yet been assessed [...]
Predicting Land Surface Temperature With Uncertainty Estimation Using a Community Sensor Network and Machine Learning
Published: 2025-02-01
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Sustainability
Urban Heat Islands (UHIs) are areas in cities that experience higher temperatures than surrounding areas due to construction features such as buildings, roads, and a general lack of vegetation. UHIs, which pose a threat to public health while also increasing energy usage, are often defined using land surface temperatures. Our study demonstrates how a community sensor network from the Baltimore [...]
Sea level rise submergence simulations suggest substantial deterioration of Indian River Lagoon ecosystem services by 2050, Florida, U.S.A.
Published: 2025-01-03
Subjects: Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
The Indian River Lagoon is a 250-km long Estuary of National Significance located along the east central Florida coast of the USA. NOAA tidal records generated at a station located in the central reaches of the estuary indicate sea level rise has accelerated over the past 20 years to an average of 9.6 ± 1.6 mm yr−1 (2003–2022) and it is expected to continue accelerating over the duration of this [...]
Projecting Global Changes in Land Use and Ecosystem Services Using SEALS (Spatial Economic Allocation Landscape Simulator)
Published: 2024-12-18
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Spatial Science, Statistical Models
Understanding how economic systems and ecosystems interact across space is crucial to ensure societal needs are met without compromising environmental quality. Spatially explicit economic models usually describe human activities and ensuing land-use dynamics at a resolution that this is too coarse (typically 10-1000 regions) to understand how these affect many biophysical processes, including [...]
Functional regression for space-time prediction of precipitation-induced shallow landslides in South Tyrol, Italy
Published: 2024-12-10
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Geology, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Multivariate Analysis, Statistical Models
Shallow landslides are geomorphic hazards in mountainous terrains across the globe. Their occurrence can be attributed to the interplay of static and dynamic landslide controls. In previous studies, data-driven approaches have been employed to model shallow landslides on a regional scale, focusing on analyzing the spatial aspects and time-varying conditions separately. Still, the joint assessment [...]
Disappearance of Homo floresiensis from Liang Bua alongside seasonal aridification of Flores 61,000-47,000 years ago
Published: 2024-12-10
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Fresh Water Studies, Geochemistry, Hydrology, Paleobiology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Speleology
The cause of the disappearance of the primitive hominin, Homo floresiensis, from the Indonesian island of Flores ~50,000 years ago is a key question in palaeoanthropology. The potential roles of human agency and climate change continue to be debated, but the history of freshwater availability critical to survival at the type locality, Liang Bua, remains unknown. Although speleothem 18O is used [...]
Tracking Drought Impacts from Texts: Towards AI-Assisted Drought Impact Detection
Published: 2024-12-07
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology
Drought is recognized for its extensive and varied impacts. Based on the drought-related textual datasets from the National Drought Mitigation Center, our research applies advanced artificial intelligence techniques, including deep learning and natural language processing, to enhance the monitoring of multifaceted drought impacts in the United States. This study also delves into predicting [...]
Rising Temperatures Increase Risk of Soil Salinity and Land Degradation in Water-Scarce Regions
Published: 2024-10-17
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Soil Science, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
Climate change introduces significant uncertainty when assessing the risk of soil salinity in water-scarce regions. We combine a soil-water-salinity-sodicity model (SOTE) and a weather generator model (AWE-GEN) to develop a framework for studying salinity and sodicity dynamics under changing climate definitions. Using California’s San Joaquin Valley as a case study, we perform first-order [...]
Potential effects of coagulation processes on phytoplankton mortality in the Elbe estuary from a Lagrangian point of view
Published: 2024-10-17
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Oceanography, Water Resource Management
Within the Elbe estuary, a sudden change in depth occurs when the river enters the shipping channel in the Port of Hamburg. This change in depth correlates with a sharp decline in phytoplankton concentrations. This decline affects the estuarine food web and shifts the ecosystem from autotrophic to heterotrophic during the summer months. Previous studies have hypothesized that this collapse is [...]
Unveiling Year-Round Cropland Cover by Soil-Specific Spectral Unmixing of Landsat and Sentinel-2 Time Series
Published: 2024-09-28
Subjects: Agriculture, Earth Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring
Croplands are essential for food security but also impact the environment, biodiversity, and climate. Understanding, monitoring, modeling, and managing these impacts require accurate, comprehensive information on cropland vegetation cover.This study aimed to continuously monitor the state and vegetative processes of cropland, focusing on the assessment of bare soil and its cover with [...]
Mapping current and future European potential vegetation to support restoration planning
Published: 2024-09-13
Subjects: Biodiversity, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation
The extent and intactness of natural ecosystems is a key factor enabling species populations to thrive. However, the distribution of ecosystems is changing owing to both climatic and anthropogenic factors. Recently negotiated European policy directives, such as the Nature Restoration Law, argue for the restoration of natural ecosystems. Yet to determine what is to be restored the range of [...]
The extended Global Lake area, Climate, and Population (GLCP) dataset: Extending the GLCP to include ice, snow, and radiation-related climate variables
Published: 2024-08-28
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Natural Resource Economics, Natural Resources and Conservation, Other Environmental Sciences, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
A changing climate and increasing human population necessitate understanding global freshwater availability. To enable assessment of lake water variability from local-to-global and monthly-to-decadal scales, we extended the Global Lake area, Climate, and Population (GLCP) dataset, which contains monthly lake surface area for 1.42 million lakes with paired basin-level climate and population data [...]
Climate equivalence metrics for airline contrail mitigation
Published: 2024-07-10
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Studies, Sustainability
The aviation sector faces a significant challenge in mitigating climate change due to the dual impact of CO2 emissions and contrail formation. Contrails, which form under specific atmospheric conditions, contribute to global warming. Mitigating contrails, however, can require flight path diversions, leading to increased fuel consumption and CO2 emissions. This study evaluates various climate [...]
One Belt, Many Roads: Investigating China’s Foreign Investment and Land-use Impacts in Southeast Asia
Published: 2024-06-22
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Natural Resource Economics
Foreign direct investment (FDI) can reshape landscapes in developing countries, but its impact remains unclear. This study examines how China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) FDI impacts land-cover and land-use change in Southeast Asia, a key trade partner receiving significant Chinese infrastructure investments. Focusing on areas with BRI investments from 2008 to 2018, we utilize satellite data [...]