Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment
Problems with Greenhouse Gas Life Cycle Analyses of U.S. LNG Exports and Locally-Produced Coal
Published: 2024-04-01
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Oil, Gas, and Energy
Exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United States are growing rapidly, and the United States government must balance a multiplicity of interests in deciding to what extent the growth of LNG exports should be further encouraged. Its decisions must be consistent with the Natural Gas Act, which mandates that exports of natural gas be in the public interest. In the current [...]
Navigating uncertainty and sensitivity analysis of future tropical cyclone risk estimates
Published: 2024-03-22
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment
Future tropical cyclone risks will evolve depending on climate change and socio-economic development, entailing significant uncertainties. An uncertainty and sensitivity analysis of future tropical cyclone risks is thus vital for robust decision-making and model improvement. However, the outcomes of such uncertainty and sensitivity analyses are tied to the chosen model setup, warranting caution [...]
Wildfire smoke exposure and mortality burden in the US under future climate change
Published: 2024-03-12
Subjects: Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Public Health, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Wildfire activity has increased in the US and is projected to accelerate under future climate change. However, our understanding of the impacts of climate change on wildfire smoke and health remains highly uncertain. Here we quantify the mortality burden in the US due to wildfire smoke fine particulate matter (PM2.5) under future climate change. We construct an ensemble of statistical and machine [...]
Linking local climate scenarios to global warming levels: Applicability, prospects and uncertainties
Published: 2024-03-08
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Global warming levels (GWLs) are increasingly becoming a central concept in climate change studies. In recent years, their integrative quality for climate change impact analysis has been demonstrated, and methodological advancements have helped to compensate for some inherent shortfalls of the concept. However, their applicability at the regional level is debatable, and no study to date has [...]
Looking upstream: analyzing the protection of the drainage area of Amazon rivers
Published: 2023-11-13
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
In the Amazon, aquatic ecosystems provide essential ecosystem services, including transportation, food, and livelihoods for millions of species. Land use changes and management impact these ecosystem services, and these impacts are not limited to the specific areas where they occur but propagate downstream along the drainage network. However, assessment of the accumulated human footprint upstream [...]
Site selection of desert solar farms based on heterogeneous sand flux
Published: 2023-10-09
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Geomorphology, Risk Analysis
Site selection for building solar farms in deserts is crucial and must consider the dune threats associated with sand flux, such as sand burial and dust contamination. Understanding the changes in sand flux can optimize the site selection of desert solar farms. Here we use the ERA5-Land hourly wind data with 0.1°×0.1° resolution to calculate the yearly sand flux from 1950 to 2022. The mean of [...]
Coral geochemical response to uplift in the aftermath of the 2005 Nias-Simeulue earthquake
Published: 2023-10-07
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Geochemistry, Geomorphology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Tectonics and Structure
On 28 March 2005, the Indonesian islands of Nias and Simeulue experienced a powerful Mw 8.6 earthquake and widespread co-seismic uplift and subsidence. In areas of coastal uplift (up to ~2.8 m), fringing reef coral communities were killed by exposure, while deeper corals that survived were subjected to habitats with altered runoff, sediment and nutrient regimes. Here we present time-series [...]
Social Vulnerability and Climate Risk Assessment for Agricultural Communities in The United States
Published: 2023-08-18
Subjects: Agriculture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Geographic Information Sciences, Physical and Environmental Geography, Risk Analysis, Spatial Science
Floods and droughts significantly affect agricultural activities and pose a threat to food security by subsequently reducing agricultural production. The impact of flood events is distributed disproportionately among agricultural communities based on their socio-economic fabric. Understanding climate-related hazards is critical for planning mitigation measures to secure vulnerable communities. [...]
Heuristic Data-inspired Scheme to Characterize Meteorological and Groundwater Droughts in Semi-arid Karstic Region under Warming Climate
Published: 2023-07-08
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Hydrology
Study region The Edwards Aquifer Region is located in south-central Texas, United States. Study focus The paper focuses on the development and implementation of a data-inspired heuristic drought identification scheme to (i) quantify the intensity, duration, and frequency of precipitation deficit- and high temperature-driven meteorological droughts (PMet- and TMet-droughts), and (ii) link [...]
Impacts of Climate Change on Various Sectors in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistan; A Review
Published: 2023-06-24
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Studies
Introduction: Day to day atmospheric conditions of an area is referred to as weather, whereas, the statistical expression of weather events in an area over a period of minimum 30 years is called climate. Due to the global warming, weather across the globe has started changing from time to time. As a result, the climate change in different areas have taken rise. Pakistan is amongst the top ten [...]
Enhancing Flood Risk Assessment Through Machine Learning and Open Data
Published: 2023-06-02
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring
Urban flooding causes billions of dollars in damages annually, with severe flood events becoming more frequent and destructive as our climate changes. While extreme weather is a primary driver of flooding, its consequences depend on the interconnectedness of urban systems - referred to as the Urban Multiplex, which includes the power grid, transportation network, natural surface water and [...]
Macroplastic fragmentation in rivers
Published: 2023-05-25
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Sedimentology
The process of macroplastic (>0.5 cm) fragmentation results in the production of smaller plastic particles (micro- and nanoplastics), which threaten biota and human health and are difficult to remove from the environment. The global coverage and long retention times of macroplastic waste in fluvial systems (ranging from years to centuries) create long-lasting and widespread potential for its [...]
Mitigating risk of exceeding environmental limits requires ambitious food system interventions
Published: 2023-04-05
Subjects: Agriculture, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Sustainability
Transforming the global food system is necessary to avoid exceeding planetary boundaries. A robust evidence base is crucial to assess the scale and combination of interventions required for a sustainable transformation. We developed a risk assessment framework, underpinned by a meta-regression of 60 global food system modeling studies, to quantify the potential of individual and combined [...]
Greenhouse gas intensity of geologic hydrogen produced from subsurface deposits
Published: 2023-03-23
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Oil, Gas, and Energy
Geologic hydrogen (H2) deposits could be a source of climate friendly energy. In this work, we perform a prospective life cycle assessment of a generic geologic hydrogen production and processing system. While it is still too early in the development cycle to estimate precise life-cycle carbon intensities (CI) we can use fundamental engineering physics and chemistry to estimate CI. Our baseline [...]
Addressing Tidal Flooding Induced uncertainties in Satellite Derived Global Salt Marsh Change Studies: Impact on Blue Carbon Monitoring
Published: 2023-03-04
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Other Environmental Sciences, Water Resource Management
In the past few years, it has been established that remote sensing of wetlands change analysis studies would require careful examination of tidal flooding produced uncertainties in satellite datasets. Tide flagging and filtering mechanisms are required to reduce per-pixel variabilities and errors in change detection. We present a technical note summarizing the potential impact of a lack of tide [...]