Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Environmental Sciences
The 4th Global Coral Bleaching Event: Unprecedented, unbounded, unrelenting
Published: 2025-07-01
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
Increasingly frequent marine heatwaves have escalated the prevalence and extent of mass coral bleaching events. When marine heatwaves impact reef areas across all tropical ocean basins within a common period, global-scale coral bleaching can unfold. Here, we elaborate previous analyses to define set of objective criteria for defining a Global Coral Bleaching Event. Using this definition, we [...]
An explainable machine learning prediction system for early-warning of heat stress on Florida’s Coral Reef
Published: 2025-06-25
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Marine Biology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Coral reefs are facing increasing threats from rising ocean temperatures, necessitating timely and localized prediction tools to inform reef management and conservation. This study introduces a machine learning framework capable of forecasting the onset of moderate coral heat stress at site-specific resolution on Florida’s Coral Reef. Leveraging the XGBoost algorithm, the data-driven prediction [...]
Satellite-based assessment of methane emissions from the Darvaza gas crater
Published: 2025-06-20
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Oil, Gas, and Energy
Methane (CH₄) is one of the most potent greenhouse gases, and the gas-burning Darvaza crater in Turkmenistan is a rare and persistent emitter. There are substantial uncertainties regarding the date of the crater formation (assumed to be either in 1963 or 1971), the ignition of the fire, and the relation between the fire intensity and methane release. In this study, we reconstruct the fire history [...]
Lagged impacts of groundwater pumping on streamflow due to stream drying: Incorporation into analytical streamflow depletion estimation methods
Published: 2025-06-18
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
Water management often requires accounting for reductions in streamflow caused by groundwater pumping (‘streamflow depletion’). Since streamflow depletion cannot be quantified from observational data, it is typically modeled. Analytical depletion functions (ADFs) are a low-cost, low-complexity approach for estimating streamflow depletion with utility for decision support, but ADFs adopt several [...]
Sediment storage quantification in the Black Forest highlights tectonic influence on typically wide and shallow valleys
Published: 2025-06-17
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
Quantifying sedimentary volumes in mountain valleys can not only enhance our understanding of Quaternary valley evolution and river dynamics but also yield critical insights into hydrogeological characteristics. In contrast to the thoroughly investigated Upper Rhine Graben, little coherent information is available on the subsurface structure of adjacent Black Forest valleys. This study therefore [...]
Comprehensive quantification of production costs for large-scale kelp aquaculture and cost reduction opportunities
Published: 2025-06-12
Subjects: Agriculture, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Natural Resource Economics, Other Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
A highly realistic techno-economic analysis (TEA) was developed to assess the cost of production (COP, US $ per fresh tonne kelp) for large-scale kelp aquaculture. The TEA resolves feedbacks across structural design and response, operational requirements and decisions, site properties, and biological response. We apply the TEA to a Saccharina latissima farming operation at a 100m deep, 405 [...]
Assessing the Efficacy and Climate Resilience of Traditional Water Harvesting Systems in Jodhpur District, Rajasthan: A Geospatial and Hydrological Modeling Approach
Published: 2025-06-09
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences
Traditional Water Harvesting Systems (TWHS) are critical for water security in arid regions like Jodhpur district, Rajasthan, India, yet their contemporary efficacy and climate resilience remain inadequately quantified. This study comprehensively assesses selected TWHS, primarily nadis and johads, by integrating geospatial analysis for inventory and characterization, hydrological modeling (SCS-CN [...]
Chiwi Kawi: Field Report 2025 - Chiricahua Sky Island
Published: 2025-06-07
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Forest Sciences, Plant Sciences
This field report details the environmental dynamics of the Chiricahua Mountains in SE Arizona. Adding to the previous 2022-2023 field report, these observations begin with the impact of the 2023 summer monsoons and the extreme drought conditions leading into 2025. Extraordinary stories from 2024 include wildlife observations of blonde and ginger coati, a lone wolf, jaguar tracks, and a yearling [...]
Unprecedented decline in modern coral reef communities could indicate the onset of the Anthropocene
Published: 2025-06-05
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Stratigraphy
Coral reefs have experienced widespread and accelerated decline, driven by a combination of global and local anthropogenic stressors. To contextualize these changes, we compared the composition of coral reef communities on Curaçao between 1973 and 2023 with that of corals preserved in fossil reefs from the Last Interglacial period (128–116 ka). These fossil reefs, exposed along the island’s [...]
Validation and Metrics for Emissions Detection by Satellite
Published: 2025-05-31
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
Detecting and quantifying greenhouse gas emissions from individual sites by satellite remote sensing has emerged as a powerful new method in recent years. As more and more players enter the field, based on a variety of technologies for both instrumentation and data processing, there is a need for standardized methods for evaluating the performance of these systems. This document is focused on the [...]
A Review of Atmospheric Micro/Nanoplastics: Insights into Source and Fate for Modelling Studies
Published: 2025-05-08
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 [...]