Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Environmental Sciences
A Review of Atmospheric Micro/Nanoplastics: Insights into Source and Fate for Modelling Studies
Published: 2025-05-09
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Environmental Sciences
Micro/nanoplastics (MNPs), as emerging pollutants, have attracted increasing attention due to their potential adverse effects on human health, ecosystems, and climate. The rapid, turbulent, and large-scale nature of atmospheric transport facilitates both horizontal and vertical movement of MNPs over long distances within a short time, largely independent of topographical constraints, thereby [...]
Natural forests of the world - a 2020 baseline for deforestation and degradation monitoring
Published: 2025-04-29
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geographic Information Sciences, Remote Sensing
Informed decisions to reduce deforestation, protect biodiversity, and curb carbon emissions require not just knowing where forests are, but understanding their composition. Identifying natural forests, which serve as critical biodiversity hotspots and major carbon sinks, is particularly valuable. We developed a novel global natural forest map for 2020 at 10 m resolution. This map can support [...]
Helmets Labeling Crops: Kenya Crop Type Dataset Created via Helmet-Mounted Cameras and Deep Learning
Published: 2025-04-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences
Accurate, up-to-date agricultural monitoring is essential for assessing food production, particularly in countries like Kenya, where recurring climate extremes, including floods and droughts, exacerbate food insecurity challenges. In regions dominated by smallholder farmers, a significant obstacle to effective agricultural monitoring is the limited availability of current, detailed crop-type [...]
Mapping Responsible AI Workflows for Geospatial Data Science: Developing the I-GUIDE Data Ethics Toolkit
Published: 2025-04-23
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Computer Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Library and Information Science, Sustainability
AI workflows in geospatial data science promise substantial societal benefits yet pose persistent challenges of ethical risk, transparency, and reproducibility. Current guidance, ranging from high‑level principles to isolated documentation templates, remains difficult to translate into day‑to‑day research practice, especially for teams operating under tight deadlines. This paper reports the [...]
Leveraging Automated Machine Learning (AutoML) for Urban Climate Emulation
Published: 2025-04-23
Subjects: Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences
Urban climate models are critical for understanding and addressing the impacts of urban climate change. Yet, process-based urban climate models face limitations of high-entry barriers and substantial computing resource consumption, prompting the development of data-driven methods. However, the recently developed urban climate emulators, being location-dependent, are less scalable and may overlook [...]
Evaluating the role of observational uncertainty in climate impact assessments: Temperature-driven yellow fever risk in South America
Published: 2025-04-20
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
Global gridded temperature data sets (GGTDs) vary in their information sources, quality control procedures, generation techniques, and spatial-temporal resolutions, introducing observational uncertainty. This uncertainty is critical not only for studies on current climate conditions but also for future climate change projections, where observational data sets are used for bias correction and [...]
Using Google Earth Engine and the Normalized Difference Drought Index (2000–2024) to assess the spatiotemporal drought severity in Kenya's arid and semi-arid landscape
Published: 2025-04-20
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
Arid and Semi-Arid Lands (ASALs) have seen a surge in extreme climatic events with devastating environmental and livelihood effects. Understanding the dynamics of these extreme events such as drought at the landscape level is essential for anticipatory action among resource-dependent communities in the ASALs. This study utilised Systems Google Earth Engine (GEE) to analyse 24 years of Normalised [...]
Assessing legacy nitrogen in groundwater using numerical models of the Long Island aquifer system, New York
Published: 2025-04-15
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
Nitrogen transported along groundwater flow paths in coastal aquifers can contribute substantially to nitrogen loading into surface water receptors, particularly in hydrologic systems dominated by groundwater discharge. Nitrogen entrained in the aquifer is a function of land use and associated nitrogen sources at the time of groundwater recharge, which may differ considerably from present-day [...]
A realistic climate strategy
Published: 2025-04-12
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Sustainability
The international climate strategy is failing. Current policies will act too slowly to prevent rising temperatures from crossing critical climate tipping points. IPCC assessments underestimate the non-linear risks and catastrophic costs of overshooting Paris Agreement targets. Opponents of solar geoengineering cite concerns about moral hazard and other potential risks; however, at this juncture [...]
Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions Poised to Rocket: Modeling the Environmental Impact of LEO Satellite Constellations
Published: 2025-04-11
Subjects: Astrophysics and Astronomy, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physics
The proliferation of satellite megaconstellations in low Earth orbit (LEO) represents a significant advancement in global broadband connectivity. However, we urgently need to understand the potential environmental impacts, particularly greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with these constellations. This study addresses a critical gap in modeling current and future GHG emissions by developing [...]
WITHDRAWN Estimating the contribution of vacant land in mitigating flooding in the Neuse Basin
Published: 2025-04-11
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
WITHDRAWN
Impact of Marine Heatwaves and Coldwaves on CO2 in the South China Sea
Published: 2025-04-10
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
Global warming is increasing the frequency and intensity of marine heatwaves (MHWs) in the South China Sea, while marine cold waves (MCWs) occur intermittently. Both phenomena influence the air-sea CO2 flux (FCO2) at the air-sea interface. This study uses inversion and reanalysis data, along with FCO2 diagnostic methods, to assess their impact on FCO2 in the South China Sea from 2003 to 2019. The [...]
Anthropogenic Interference in Aeolian Processes in Kerman Plain, Southeastern Iran
Published: 2025-04-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geography
Dry climate, poor vegetation and relatively smooth topography are the most important factors that brought about wind erosion processes prevail in the Kerman plain. Aeolian sediments in the Kerman plain can be divided into active and stabilized sediments. Stabilized sediments show a cross-bedding structure and coarser-grained fluvial sediments are found between layers of aeolian sediments. [...]
The New Method of Estimation Greenhouse Effect and Climate Change
Published: 2025-03-19
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Global climate change is one of the major concerns of modern society. To estimate this change, the global mean temperature is often used. Measuring and calculating the Earth’s average temperature is a complex, multi-step process that combines data from various sources and employs statistical techniques. Today, datasets containing spatial-temporal data on Earth’s temperature are readily [...]
Mercury budget in global rivers at present-day: impacts from reservoirs and dams
Published: 2025-03-14
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Water Resource Management
Many world rivers are currently polluted by mercury (Hg) compounds, leading to the bioaccumulation of methylmercury (MeHg) in the food web, which poses potential health risks to humans. However, the riverine Hg budgets of global scale remain poorly understood due to limited observations, complicating efficient environmental governance. Here, we employ a process-driven Hg model to track its [...]