Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Environmental Sciences
The what, how and why of human coprolite analysis in archaeology
Published: 2020-02-06
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Life Sciences, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Coprolites are a highly informative but still underutilized proxy for understanding past environments, palaeodiets, and ancient human health. Here we provide a critical review of the history and current state of research in human coprolite analysis encompassing, macroscopic, microscopic, and biomolecular approaches. We present new data from a number of key sites which demonstrates how new [...]
Sensitivity Analysis of a Conceptual, Lumped Model Using VARS-TOOL Applied to Western Ghats Catchments of India
Published: 2020-01-30
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
The present work considers the application of Variogram Analysis of Response Surfaces Toolbox (VARS-TOOL) to identify the sensitive parameters of a rainfall-runoff model in the Netravati river basin of Karnataka, India using the global sensitivity analysis method. The statistical bootstrapping method is used to obtain the confidence intervals around each of the sensitivity indices. The VARS-TOOL [...]
High Attenuation Recycled Materials as landfill liners (the HARM project) – A new concept for improved landfill liner design
Published: 2020-01-28
Subjects: Bioresource and Agricultural Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Education, Engineering, Engineering Science and Materials, Environmental Public Health, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Geotechnical Engineering, Hydrology, Medicine and Health Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Public Health, Soil Science
A new approach in landfill liner design which combines hydraulic containment of leachate with contaminant attenuation to improve the performance of these environmental control systems at landfills is described. The idea is to re-use readily available industrial waste residues (construction and biomass waste) as additives for natural clay liners, wherein the additives have specific properties [...]
Rainsplash Erosion for Natural Slopes and Rainfall Conditions
Published: 2020-01-24
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Rainsplash is significant for interrill erosion since it facilitates the movement of loosened soil frangments. Because it is a technically dicult process to measure, many studies focus on experimental simulation under controlled conditions both in field and laboratory. Raindrop erosion studies have produced models to predict the erosivity due to raindrop impact on varying ground surfaces, with a [...]
The role of natural clays in the sustainability of landfill liners
Published: 2020-01-10
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Geotechnical Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Engineered synthetic liners on their own are not the ideal solution to protect land, water and living beings against landfill leachate pollution. Despite their impermeability, engineered liners are susceptible to fail during installation and after a few years of landfill operation, and have no attenuation properties. Conversely, natural clay liners can attenuate leachate pollutants by reactions [...]
Rainfall and rainfall erosivity time series analysis of a small semi-arid watershed of the American Southwest
Published: 2020-01-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The long-term dense precipitation records provide important information to understand rainfall erosivity and soil erosion in semi-arid rangelands. This paper investigates the temporal trends of changes in rainfall, rainfall erosivity, and the responses of runoff and sediment on the WS103 watershed, a small semiarid rangeland watershed in the Walnut gulch Experimental Watershed, Tombstone, [...]
Modelling the ecological impacts of tidal energy barrages
Published: 2020-01-09
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Tidal energy has the potential to form a key component of the energy mix of a number of countries, including the UK. Nonetheless, the deployment of tidal energy systems is associated with potential environmental impacts as prime resource sites often coincide with unique ecosystems inhabited by sensitive organisms. Preceding studies have generally focused on the hydrodynamic impact of tidal energy [...]
Feedback between drought and deforestation in the Amazon
Published: 2020-01-09
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability
Deforestation and drought are among the greatest environmental pressures on the Amazon rainforest, possibly destabilizing the forest-climate system. Deforestation in the Amazon reduces rainfall regionally, while this deforestation itself has been reported to be facilitated by droughts. Here we quantify the interactions between drought and deforestation spatially across the Amazon during the early [...]
Distributed Acoustic Sensing of Microseismic Sources and Wave Propagation in Glaciated Terrain
Published: 2020-01-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Glaciology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Records of Alpine microseismicity are a powerful tool to study landscape-shaping processes and warn against hazardous mass movements. Unfortunately, seismic sensor coverage in Alpine regions is typically insufficient. Here we show that distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) bridges critical observational gaps of seismogenic processes in Alpine terrain. Dynamic strain measurements in a 1 km long fiber [...]
Stochastic, empirically‐informed model of landscape dynamics and its application to deforestation scenarios
Published: 2019-12-25
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Land change including deforestation undermines the sustainability of the environment. Using data on 1992‐2015 pattern change in over 1.7 million meso‐scale landscapes worldwide we developed a stochastic model of long‐term landscape dynamics. The model suggests that observed heterogeneous landscapes are short‐lived stages in a transition between quasi‐stable homogeneous landscapes of different [...]
Comment on ‘Unintentional unfairness when applying new greenhouse gas emissions metrics at country level’
Published: 2019-12-13
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Here, we provide a comment in response to a recently published paper ‘Unintentional unfairness when applying new greenhouse gas emissions metrics at country level’ by Rogelj and Schleussner (2019). We note a number of errors in their critique of the use of GWP* to relate cumulative and short-lived climate pollutants, argue that their logic is flawed, their ethical considerations are narrow and [...]
Characterisation and controls on mineral-sorbed organic matter from a variety of groundwater environments
Published: 2019-12-12
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Detailed investigations into natural groundwater organic matter (OM) as carbon sources or sinks in the natural carbon cycle are generally limited. Groundwater OM concentration and composition is altered by biodegradation and sorption to minerals. In the saturated zone of an aquifer, dissolved organic matter (DOM) may represent a significant fraction of the natural groundwater dissolved organic [...]
Policy Bridge: Air Quality Impacts from Oil and Natural Gas Development in Colorado
Published: 2019-12-12
Subjects: Environmental Education, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The rise of hydraulic fracturing techniques has fostered rapid growth of oil and natural gas extraction in areas across the United States. In the Denver-Julesburg Basin (DJB), which mostly overlaps with Weld County in the Northern Colorado Front Range (NCFR) north of the City of Denver Metropolitan Area (DMA), the well drilling has increasingly approached, and in many instances moved into urban [...]
Future heat extremes likely to have been underestimated
Published: 2019-12-09
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
In a warming world, temperature extremes are expected to show a distinguishable change over much of the globe1 and in many regions this change has already been detected in observations2,3. Although previous studies predict an increase in heat extreme events, the magnitude of the change varies greatly among different models even for the same mean warming4. This uncertainty has been linked to [...]
Stronger Atlantic hurricanes: Validating Elsner et al. (2008)
Published: 2019-12-04
Subjects: Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Using satellite derived wind speed estimates from tropical cyclones over the 25-year period 1981--2006, Elsner et al. (2008) showed the strongest tropical cyclones getting stronger. They related the increasing intensity to rising ocean temperatures consistent with theory. Oceans continued to warm since that paper was published so the intensity of the strongest cyclones should have continued [...]