Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Environmental Sciences
A Vision for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence in Great Lakes Research and Management
Published: 2026-02-06
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Databases and Information Systems, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Fresh Water Studies, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Water Resource Management
The Laurentian Great Lakes are a vital freshwater resource and a regionally significant natural system facing complex, persistent, and compounding challenges from climate change, nutrient loading, and invasive species. The increasing availability of observational data, coupled with advances in computational power and machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) methods, presents an [...]
A metadata schema for documenting material samples from multiple domains
Published: 2026-02-04
Subjects: Biodiversity, Databases and Information Systems, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Library and Information Science
This paper documents a metadata schema, implementation, and associated vocabularies developed for the Internet of Samples (iSamples) project to integrate geoscience, archaeology/anthropology, biology and genomics sample descriptions in a single cross-domain catalog. To develop the sample description scheme for sample discovery across these disparate domains, we reviewed the metadata schema and [...]
Systematic Review of Dissolved Oxygen in Streams and Rivers: Advances, Challenges, and Opportunities
Published: 2026-01-29
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Dissolved oxygen (DO) has been extensively studied in streams and rivers. Despite this breadth of research, the processes governing DO are rarely quantified concurrently with whole-ecosystem measurements. To address this gap, we synthesize 230 empirical studies (1964-2024) to evaluate how, where, and with what methods oxygen exchanges—the processes by which oxygen enters and leaves streams—have [...]
Improving 210Po low level measurements in seawater
Published: 2026-01-28
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physics
Ocean is the largest sink of atmospheric carbon, atmospheric CO2 is synthesized by surface phytoplankton into particle organic carbon (POC) that is exported from the ocean surface to depth, where it can be stored for years. An accurate quantification of downward POC flux is crucial for making reliable predictions of present and future atmospheric CO2 concentrations. A method based on the [...]
Smoothing Earth’s surface: the complexity of soil texture class transitions
Published: 2026-01-27
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Dynamical Systems, Dynamic Systems, Environmental Sciences, Non-linear Dynamics, Numerical Analysis and Computation, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing, Ordinary Differential Equations and Applied Dynamics, Soil Science, Statistical Models, Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics
Soil depth functions are essential for analysing, modeling, understanding and visualising soil profiles. While robust methods existed for continuous properties, soil texture is typically reported as discrete classes, and no established approach exists to interpolate soil categorical information with depth. Here, we introduced phySplines, a physics-informed, analytically solvable spline for [...]
Spontaneous liquefaction in saturated granular deposits: State controlled boundary and surface reconfiguration
Published: 2026-01-26
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Engineering Science and Materials, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Geotechnical Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering, Mechanics of Materials, Mining Engineering, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Risk Analysis
In the case of water-saturated, granular deposits that are at risk of liquefaction, engineers need reliable information about the spatial extent of soil deformation in the event of liquefaction. It is not so important for them to know the exact location of the first failure. However, existing anal-yses primarily deal with the triggering of liquefaction and offer only limited information on how [...]
A New Paradigm for High-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal: Intrinsic Radionuclide Properties and Comparative Hazard
Published: 2026-01-21
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology
This paper develops a hazard- and pathway-based framework for high-level radioactive waste (HLW) disposal grounded in intrinsic radionuclide decay characteristics, geochemical behavior, and comparative hazard. We examine the physical and geochemical properties of key radionuclides and quantify lifetime cancer risk from chronic ingestion on a per-unit-mass basis using established regulatory [...]
Mineral properties identified as most influential drivers of mineral-associated organic carbon formation using a community-based sorption database
Published: 2026-01-10
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences
Increasing soil organic carbon (SOC) storage has the potential to substantially offset anthropogenic CO2 emissions. Globally, mineral-associated organic carbon (MAOC) constitutes the majority of SOC (~65%) and represents a more persistent SOC pool for sequestration. However, the factors controlling how much organic carbon sorbs to soil minerals remain poorly understood, limiting our ability to [...]
Cervical Cancer and Climate Change
Published: 2026-01-09
Subjects: Environmental Public Health, Environmental Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences
Background: The research question guiding this scoping review was: "What does the literature reveal (since January 1, 2005) about the association between climate change—or its underlying environmental drivers—and cervical cancer?" Methods: We conducted a comprehensive literature search using two major electronic databases: PubMed and Web of Science, for January 1, 2005, through July 30, 2024. 522 [...]
HydroVerse Education: An AI-Assisted Education Framework for Immersive Learning and Training Environments
Published: 2025-12-22
Subjects: Adult and Continuing Education, Computer Engineering, Educational Methods, Engineering Education, Environmental Education, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences
Hydroinformatics education has traditionally been constrained by pedagogical approaches that fail to adequately convey the complexity of water systems. Virtual Reality (VR) presents a transformative solution by enabling interactive and experiential learning. This study introduces HydroVerse Education, an immersive virtual classroom environment designed to modernize hydroinformatics education by [...]
How Robust are Single Aliquot Regeneration paleo-doses using single grains of Quartz: The role of change in luminescence sensitivity during the measurement of natural luminescence
Published: 2025-12-18
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Luminescence dating using quartz is generally carried out using the single aliquot regeneration (SAR) protocol (Murray et al., 2021; Murray and Wintle, 2000). Singhvi et al. (2011) suggested a methodological improvement in the SAR protocol to account for the changes in the luminescence sensitivity during the readout of natural OSL signal. It was suggested that such changes are common and if not [...]
A Multidisciplinary Data Synthesis for Environmentally-Relevant Beta-Emitting Radionuclides in the Back-End Nuclear Fuel Cycle
Published: 2025-12-14
Subjects: Chemistry, Environmental Sciences, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics
This study synthesizes multidisciplinary information—from nuclear physics and environmental science—related to environmentally relevant beta-emitting radionuclides in the back-end nuclear fuel cycle: H-3, C-14, Cl-36, Se-79, Sr-90, Tc-99, and I-129. First, our synthesis shows that these radionuclides are the key contaminants and dominant dose contributors, both in the high-level radioactive waste [...]
Income strongly moderates climate-driven migration
Published: 2025-12-13
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
Understanding how climate change will reshape human migration remains an open empirical challenge. Migration decisions reflect a complex interplay of environmental and socioeconomic factors, yet existing data and models have struggled to capture this interaction at a global scale. To address this, we assemble spatially granular, long-panel migration data covering nearly the entire world and [...]
Climate Network Analysis of Precipitation Regimes from WorldClim Data in Saudi Arabia
Published: 2025-12-12
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Geography, Risk Analysis
Saudi Arabia is shaped by a hydroclimatic gradient, from the hyper-arid Rub’ al-Khali desert to the semi-arid mountains in the southwest. This gradient affects runoff generation, groundwater recharge, and drought risk, yet most studies still summarize rainfall using basic statistics from station data or gridded products. This research applies climate network analysis to identify coherent rainfall [...]
Infiltration drives a Heavy–Tailed Distribution of Combined Sewer Overflow Spill Durations
Published: 2025-12-10
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Environmental Sciences, Hydraulic Engineering
Combined sewer overflows (CSOs) discharge untreated wastewater into natural water bodies during periods of excess sewer flow, posing environmental risks. Using ∼ 4 million CSO spill events recorded by Event Duration Monitors across England (2020–2024), we characterize the statistical distribution of spill durations. We find that while spills exceeding two hours represent only ∼ 10% of events, [...]