Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Environmental Sciences
Satellites unveil easily-fixable super-emissions in one of the world's largest methane hotspot regions
Published: 2021-05-26
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
Reduction of fossil fuel-related methane emissions has been identified as an essential means for climate change mitigation, but emission source identification remains elusive. We combine three complementary satellite data sets to survey single methane emission sources on the west coast of Turkmenistan, one of the largest methane hotspots in the world. We found 29 different super-emitters active [...]
Defining a Sustainable Development Target Space for 2030 and 2050
Published: 2021-05-24
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Natural Resource Economics, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Sustainability
By adopting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), countries worldwide agreed to an agenda for achieving a prosperous, socially inclusive and environmentally sustainable future for all1. This ambition, however, also exposes a critical knowledge gap since science-based insights on how to achieve the 17 SDGs simultaneously are lacking. Quantitative goal-seeking scenario studies could enable [...]
The carbon cycle of southeast Australia during 2019-2020: Drought, fires and subsequent recovery
Published: 2021-05-13
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Forest Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
2019 was the hottest and driest year on record for southeast Australia leading to bushfires of unprecedented extent. Ecosystem carbon losses due to drought and fire are believed to have been substantial, but have not been well quantified. Here, we utilize space-based measurements of trace gases (TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument XCO, Orbiting Carbon Observatory 2 XCO2) and up-scaled GPP (FluxSat [...]
Advancing floating macroplastic detection from space using hyperspectral imagery
Published: 2021-05-13
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Other Environmental Sciences
Airborne and spaceborne remote sensing (RS) collecting hyperspectral imagery provides unprecedented opportunities for the detection and monitoring of floating riverine and marine plastic debris. However, a major challenge in the application of RS techniques is the lack of fundamental understanding of spectral signatures of water-borne plastic debris. Recent work has emphasised the case for [...]
Mapping methane point emissions with the PRISMA spaceborne imaging spectrometer
Published: 2021-05-13
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
The detection of methane emissions from fossil fuel production activities, such as oil and gas extraction and coal mining, has been identified as a key means for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere. Several types of optical satellite sensors have recently been shown to be instrumental for this task. Spaceborne imaging spectrometers belong to this group. These instruments [...]
Data Science for Geoscience: Recent Progress and Future Trends from the Perspective of a Data Life Cycle
Published: 2021-05-04
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Databases and Information Systems, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing, Theory and Algorithms
Data science receives increasing attention in a variety of geoscience disciplines and applications. Many successful data-driven geoscience discoveries have been reported recently, and the number of geoinformatics and data science sessions have begun to increase in many geoscience conferences. Across academia, industry, and governmental sectors, there is a strong interest to know more about the [...]
Knowledge graph construction and application in geosciences: A review
Published: 2021-04-30
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Computer Engineering, Computer Sciences, Databases and Information Systems, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences
Knowledge graph (KG) is a topic of great interests to geoscientists as it can be deployed throughout the data life cycle in data-intensive geoscience studies. Nevertheless, comparing with the large amounts of publications on machine learning applications in geosciences, summaries and reviews of geoscience KGs are still limited. The aim of this paper is to present a comprehensive review of KG [...]
Utilizing Random Forest Machine Learning Models to Determine Water Table Flood Levels through Volunteered Geospatial Information
Published: 2021-04-27
Subjects: Applied Mathematics, Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Many people use smartphone cameras to record their living environments through captured images, and share aspects of their daily lives on social networks, such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. These platforms provide volunteered geographic information (VGI), which enables the public to know where and when events occur. At the same time, image-based VGI can also indicate environmental changes [...]
LPDynR: a new tool to calculate the Land Productivity Dynamics indicator
Published: 2021-04-23
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy
As part of the UN Sustainable Development Goal 15 (Life on Land), the indicator 15.3.1 is adopted to measure the Land Degradation Neutrality. Land Degradation Neutrality is addressed as stable —or increasing— state in the amount and quality of land resources required to support ecosystem functions and services and enhance food security during a certain period of time. It is a binary indicator [...]
Release timing and duration control the fate of photolytic compounds in stream-hyporheic systems
Published: 2021-04-22
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Water Resource Management
Predicting environmental fate requires an understanding of the underlying, spatiotemporally variable interaction of transport and transformation processes. Photolytic compounds, for example, interact with both time-variable photolysis and the perennially dark hyporheic zone, generating potentially unexpected dynamics that arise from time-variable reactivity. This interaction has been found to [...]
A Hydrologist’s Guide to Open Science
Published: 2021-04-22
Subjects: Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Water Resource Management
Hydrologic research that is open, accessible, reusable, and reproducible will have the largest impact on the scientific community and broader society. While more and more members of the hydrology community and key hydrology organizations are embracing open science practices, technical (e.g., limited coding experience), resource (e.g., open access fees), and social (e.g., fear of being scooped) [...]
Particulate PhozzyLogic Index for policy makers—an index for a more accurate and transparent identification of critical source areas
Published: 2021-04-20
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
This study presents an algorithm for the allocation of particulate phosphorus (PP) loads entering surface waters to their sources of origin, which is a basic requirement for the identification of critical PP source areas and in turn a cost-effective implementation of mitigation measures. Furthermore, it conducts a sensitivity analysis determining the impacts of storm drains, discharge frequencies [...]
Past fires and post-fire impacts reconstructed from a southwest Australian stalagmite
Published: 2021-04-14
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences
Our current understanding of climate and its relationship to fires is generally confined to the recent past where instrumental records and satellite imagery are available. Speleothem records of past environmental change provide a unique opportunity to explore fire frequency and intensity in the past, and the antecedent climatic conditions leading to fire events. Here, we compare fire sensitive [...]
Plastic pollution research in Indonesia: state of science and future research directions to reduce impacts
Published: 2021-04-09
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
Several studies have suggested Indonesia to be among the top plastic polluting countries globally. Data on the presence and amounts of plastic pollution are required to help design effective plastic reduction and mitigation strategies. Research quantifying plastic pollution in Indonesia has picked up in recent years. However, a lack of central coordination in this research has led to research [...]
Near-real-time and state-level monitoring of U.S. CO2 emissions
Published: 2021-04-07
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
As the ambition and urgency of climate mitigation efforts across the U.S. increase, annual estimates of national CO2 emissions provide only vague and outdated information about changes and progress. Using near-real-time activity data compiled from numerous sources, here we present and analyze daily, state-level estimates of fossil fuel CO2 emissions from January 2019 through December 2020. Our [...]