Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Geomorphology
Global sediment transport intermittency is set by river planform
Published: 2026-01-14
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Sedimentology
Patterns of water and sediment flux in rivers are key to understanding landscape responses to environmental change. Quantifying water intermittency in rivers (from perennial to ephemeral) provides vital context for interpreting long-term hydrographs and flood frequency, yet controls on corresponding sediment intermittency are poorly understood due to measurement challenges. We present the first [...]
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 [...]
Increasing temperatures controlled rockfall activity in the Rwenzori Mountains (Uganda) over the past 11,000 years
Published: 2026-01-10
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology
Rockfalls and other gravitational mass movements are expected to become more frequent under ongoing global warming in temperate and cold mountainous regions. In contrast, although high numbers of rockfalls are observed in humid tropical mountains, the processes controlling their occurrence remain poorly understood. These warmer regions offer valuable natural laboratories for anticipating the [...]
What are the drivers of riparian vegetation recruitment and establishment in an alpine embanked river?
Published: 2026-01-10
Subjects: Geomorphology, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
1 – Rejuvenation operations are often conducted in rivers to manage vegetation encroachment and balance biodiversity benefits and flood risks. Understanding the drivers of vegetation recruitment and establishment is necessary to implement these operations but requires monitoring at spatial and temporal scales that are suited to pioneer riparian environment. 2 – Bi-yearly drone surveys were used [...]
ShallowLandslider: a physics-based component for predicting regional distributions of coseismic landslides
Published: 2025-12-06
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology
Earthquakes can trigger thousands of shallow landslides across mountainous terrain, reshaping landscapes and posing severe hazards. Predicting their spatial distribution remains challenging because most existing models are empirical, event-specific, and lack physical interpretability. We introduce ShallowLandslider, a physics-based component within the open-source Landlab framework for regional [...]
Sediment loading from the Río de la Plata as a driver of regional sea-level variability
Published: 2025-11-28
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Sedimentology
Sea-level reconstructions are critical benchmarks for testing models of ice-sheet stability and climate change. Their interpretation, however, is complicated by sea-level changes driven by different processes, among which the Earth’s response to sediment loading. Here we show that incorporating sediment isostasy reduces long-standing discrepancies among Marine Isotopic Stage (MIS) 5a and 5e [...]
Relict landscapes and fluvial landforms: Catastrophic outflow following a major Late Messinian base-level fall
Published: 2025-11-07
Subjects: Analysis, Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Mathematics, Physics, Stratigraphy
During the Messinian Salinity Crisis (MSC), the entire Mediterranean Basins underwent dramatic canyon incision along its margins due to fluctuating sea levels and rapidly increasing salinity. However, the specific processes and water sources responsible for such profound landscape transformations have yet to be quantitatively demonstrated. In this study, we combine high resolution 3D seismic [...]
fasterRaster: GIS in R using GRASS for large rasters and vectors
Published: 2025-10-17
Subjects: Geomorphology, Hydrology, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences
Within the R ecosystem, packages like terra and sf are the go-to solutions for most geospatial analyses, yet can struggle with large rasters and vectors. The Geographic Resources Analysis Support System, or GRASS, offers solutions that are often more efficient for large data. However, using GRASS through R requires users to become familiar with GRASS-specific syntax and data constructs. The [...]
Radiogenic Sr-Nd-Pb isotope behavior in different grain-sized fine lithic materials during basalt weathering
Published: 2025-10-16
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Geomorphology, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
Radiogenic isotopes are widely used as sediment provenance tracers; however, their weathering response has not been fully established. This study investigates the weathering sensitivity of Sr-Nd-Pb isotopes in fine lithic fractions (FLF; grain size <2 μm, <5 μm, and <20 μm) capable of long-range transport. Geochemical and isotope compositions have been measured in the physicochemically [...]
FluvDepoSet: A dataset of synthetic 3D models of fluvial deposits
Published: 2025-10-15
Subjects: Geology, Geomorphology, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
Sediments deposited by rivers constitute a key source for the water, energy, and raw materials that fuel our everyday lives. To find and manage these resources, we need to predict the spatial distribution of those fluvial deposits in the subsurface. This remains a major challenge due to the scarcity and poor quality of subsurface data, but also because traditional modeling approaches struggle to [...]
Paleoecology indicates wave climate as key factor in coral reef development
Published: 2025-09-24
Subjects: Climate, Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Stratigraphy
The Last Interglacial (∼125,000 years ago) experienced global temperatures warmer than today, making it a natural analog for future climate scenarios. Contemporary coral reefs preserve ecological signals that offer valuable insights into past climate dynamics. Here, we examine the fossil reefs of Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao to reconstruct wind and wave conditions during this period. While modern [...]
AI-Powered Flood Risk Assessment for Gilgit-Baltistan Using Multi-Source Satellite Data and Machine Learning
Published: 2025-09-20
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Geography, Geomorphology, Glaciology, Hydrology
Flood disasters are intensifying worldwide due to climate change, with mountainous regions among the most vulnerable yet least studied. This paper presents an AI-powered flood risk assessment framework for Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan, a high-mountain region prone to flash floods and glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs). Multi-source satellite datasets—including CHIRPS precipitation, JRC Global [...]
DOZER: a toy model of coastal hazard mitigation during a storm
Published: 2025-09-17
Subjects: Dynamical Systems, Geomorphology, Nature and Society Relations, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical and Environmental Geography, Science and Mathematics Education, Sustainability
Motivated by observations of emergency road-maintenance crews in coastal settings, DOZER is a video game in which the player uses a bulldozer to clear sand from a beachfront road during a storm. DOZER is also a toy model in a formal sense: a heuristic tool for insight into the dynamics of real-time intervention in the physical processes of a natural hazard. Here, I introduce DOZER as both a game [...]
Surging glaciers in Svalbard: Observing their distribution, characteristics and evolution
Published: 2025-08-22
Subjects: Geomorphology, Glaciology
Glacier surges are episodes of significantly increased ice flow due to ice-dynamical feedbacks, and are often repeated in a quasi-periodical manner. Ice mass is redistributed during a surge, which leads to surface lowering at high elevation as ice is transferred down-glacier and thickening nearer the terminus. In this paper, we review different approaches for monitoring and detecting glacier [...]
High-resolution Digital Terrain Model and Land-surface Parameters of São Sebastião and Ilhabela, southeastern Brazil
Published: 2025-08-21
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Geology, Geomorphology, Nature and Society Relations, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing
Effective disaster risk management and detailed environmental studies in landslide-prone regions require high-resolution and accurate Digital Terrain Models (DTMs). This work describes the development of a 2~m-resolution lidar-based DTM and an extensive set of land-surface parameters (LSPs) for the municipalities of São Sebastião and Ilhabela, southeastern Brazil. The dataset was generated from [...]