Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment
A Blueprint for Integrated Climate Intelligence
Published: 2026-05-13
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Planetary Sciences, Sustainability
Climate information is advancing faster than the decision systems designed to use it. Emergency response operates on timescales of hours, whereas societal adaptation unfolds over decades. Yet climate science, impact assessment and policy remain poorly integrated, limiting coherent action across timescales. We argue that artificial intelligence should be developed not only as a domain-specific [...]
A Foundational Synthesis of Ecosystem Services Knowledge to Critically Assess and Structure Their Integration into Life Cycle Impact Assessment
Published: 2026-05-11
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment
Purpose: The integration of ecosystem services in life cycle assessment has gained increasing attention. Its operationalization remains limited and inconsistent, particularly within the impact assessment phase. This study provides the first comprehensive and structured critical review that bridges foundational ecosystem services knowledge with life cycle assessment modeling needs. Method: We [...]
Spatiotemporal Evolution of Urban Thermal Conditions, Vegetation Dynamics, and Built-up Expansion in Ahmedabad, India (2000–2025) Using Multi-Temporal Landsat Analysis.
Published: 2026-05-11
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Sustainability, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Rapid urban expansion has substantially altered urban thermal conditions across many semi-arid cities. This study examined spatiotemporal variation in land surface temperature (LST), vegetation cover, and built-up intensity across Ahmedabad, India, between 2000 and 2025 using multi-temporal Landsat imagery and the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform. Spatial analysis revealed progressive expansion [...]
Challenges with Developing a Measurement-Based Basin Methane Intensity Estimate: A Case Study from the Haynesville
Published: 2026-05-01
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Oil, Gas, and Energy
Methane intensity, the emissions relative to production, has been a focus in global regulations on oil and gas production and imports, given the climate benefits of methane emission reductions. Methodological frameworks to create annual measurement-based emissions inventory estimates and calculate methane intensity using snapshot measurements have been developed. However, there are still multiple [...]
Quantifying the Regional Dynamics and Redistribution of Physical Vulnerability in Least Developed Countries
Published: 2026-04-09
Subjects: Categorical Data Analysis, Civil Engineering, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Geographic Information Sciences, Other Computer Sciences, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science, Structural Engineering
In the margins of the accelerating development of digital technology worldwide are the Least Developed Countries (LDCs), which continually face an exacerbated risk crisis at the intersection of rapid rural-urban growth, underlying physical vulnerability, and intensifying climate hazards. Despite decades of international development commitments, the rate of built-up expansion across LDCs has [...]
Spatial Assessment of Urban Flood Vulnerability in Polk County, Iowa Using a Social–Ecological–Technological Framework
Published: 2026-04-03
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Geographic Information Sciences
Flood impacts are shaped not only by environmental or economic consequences but also by the social, ecological, and infrastructural conditions that influence how communities experience and recover from hazards. This study aims to assess multi-domain flood vulnerability across Polk County, Iowa utilizing a Social–Ecological–Technological Systems (SETS) framework. Eighteen indicators were [...]
Satellite Validation of Citizen Science Marine Pollution Data: Multi-Site Correlation Analysis of Sentinel-2 Floating Debris Index and EyeSea Ground-Truth Reports
Published: 2026-03-27
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Natural Resources and Conservation
We present the first multi-site correlation analysis between the Sentinel-2 Floating Debris Index (FDI) and community-reported marine pollution data from the EyeSea citizen science platform. Across three geographically diverse coastal sites—Vasai-Virar (India), Santa Cruz, Galápagos (Ecuador), and Puerto Montt (Chile)—8,123 geotagged beach pollution reports were analysed against 91 Sentinel-2 L2A [...]
Future heat-stress regimes under CMIP6: a multi-index assessment of persistence and human-relevant thermal constraints
Published: 2026-03-03
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Studies, Geography, Nature and Society Relations
Human exposure to heat stress is increasing under climate change as rising temperatures interact with atmospheric moisture to constrain thermoregulation and outdoor activity. While numerous heat-stress indices are used in climate impact studies, their joint interpretation in terms of climatic regimes, persistence, and physiological relevance remains fragmented. Here, we provide a global, [...]
The Impact of Climate Change on Human Health and Pharmaceuticals
Published: 2026-02-16
Subjects: Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Public Health, Environmental Sciences, Medical Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental Health, Public Health, Sustainability, Toxicology
Climate change and air pollution affect nearly every major organ system, altering both the presentation of disease and patient responses to pharmaceutical treatments. However, existing knowledge on how patients, healthcare professionals, and governments should prepare for these challenges is fragmented. Climate change contributes to premature mortality, increased morbidity, and exacerbation of [...]
MACROM: An Optimal Control Model for Balancing Climate Change Abatement and Damage Trade-offs
Published: 2026-02-11
Subjects: Applied Mathematics, Climate, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment
The current pace of global emissions reduction is inadequate to meet the Paris Agreement temperature target of 1.5°C. While carbon dioxide removal (CDR) is increasingly viewed as necessary to meet these targets, questions remain about the optimal scale and timing of deployment when both costs and climate damages are considered. Here we present MACROM, an optimal control climate-economic model [...]
Global Climate Risks for Outdoor Sports Under CMIP6 Scenarios: A Multi-Indicator Assessment Based on WBGT, Heat Index, Heavy Rainfall, and Heatwaves
Published: 2026-02-03
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Physiology
Outdoor sports are increasingly exposed to climatic conditions that challenge athlete safety, performance and event organisation. Despite extensive physiological and epidemiological evidence on heat stress, no global assessment has yet quantified how multiple climate hazards will jointly constrain outdoor sport under future climate change. Here we provide the first global, CMIP6-based, [...]
Hybrid Physics–AI Ecosystem Simulations Improve Biogeochemical Predictions in Temperate Shelf Seas
Published: 2026-02-03
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Biochemistry, Biogeochemistry, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Marine Biology, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing, Oceanography, Planetary Biogeochemistry, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Biogeochemical models form a core part of marine forecasting and climate projections, yet they suffer from persistent biases in predicting key ecosystem variables, creating challenges across regional and global scales. To address this, we developed an AI-augmented three-dimensional hybrid framework that integrates machine-learning corrections directly into a process-based model’s productivity [...]
Evidence of low watershed resilience across the Western United States
Published: 2026-01-15
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
Vulnerable waters, including headwater streams and non-floodplain wetlands, are essential to watershed level resilience but notoriously difficult to measure over large spatial scales. Although individually small, vulnerable waters as a whole are integral in regulating hydrologic and biogeochemical processes. In the relatively small proportion of vulnerable waters that are continuously monitored, [...]
Assessing the Impact of Wind Erosion in Baringo County, Kenya
Published: 2026-01-13
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Geomorphology, Soil Science
Wind erosion poses substantial threats to soil health and agricultural productivity in arid and semi-arid environments globally. In response to the escalating environmental challenge of wind erosion, this study, centered in Baringo County, employs a blend of remote sensing and GIS techniques alongside the Revised Wind Erosion Equation (RWEQ) model. The study spans a 25-year period, with a main [...]
Facilitating AI-Driven Sustainability: A Service-Oriented Ar-chitecture for Interoperable Environmental Data Access
Published: 2026-01-13
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Meteorology, Software Engineering, Sustainability
Advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI), particularly agentic AI, have created opportunities to enhance global sustainability by improving the efficiency and accuracy of environmental monitoring and response systems. Agentic AIs autonomously plan and execute towards specific goals with minimal or no human intervention; however, accessing environmental data is challenging and requires expertise, [...]