Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Environmental Sciences
Monitoring CO2 Concentrations in Soil Gas: A Novel MRV Approach for Cropland-Based ERW?
Published: 2023-12-07
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences
This paper discusses the challenges we have faced in the past 2.5 years of field experiments trying to measure the speed of Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW) in agricultural settings for removing CO₂ from the atmosphere. Traditional measurements that allow quantification of carbon dioxide removal (CDR) in laboratory ERW tests include chemical analyses of the leached out soil water and monitoring [...]
Formation of giant Siberian gas emission craters (GECs)
Published: 2023-12-07
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences
The recent discovery of eight giant gas escape craters (GECs) in the Russian Yamal and Gydan peninsulas has challenged researchers for the past decade. Despite numerous proposed models, ranging from meteor impacts to gas explosions, none provide a comprehensive explanation for why the GECs are found only in this specific region. This study proposes a new general model for the formation of GECs in [...]
Quantifying the intersecting threats of wildfire and oil and gas development in the western United States
Published: 2023-11-15
Subjects: Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Oil, Gas, and Energy
The recent increases in wildfire activity in the western United States has coincided with the proliferation of oil and gas development and substantial population growth in the wildland-urban interface. Drilling and operating oil and gas wells is already associated with emissions of harmful pollutants and higher risks of adverse health outcomes for nearby residents. Perturbation from [...]
Plastics aplenty in paddy lands: incidence of microplastics in two rice cultivars of Kerala, India, and its impact on primary producers found in paddy fields
Published: 2023-11-14
Subjects: Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Toxicology
Microplastics (MP) have received worldwide attention in recent years because of its prevalence in key ecosystems, including agroecosystems. Occurrence of MP in native paddy fields, which are critical to world’s food security, is not reported till date. This study reports the abundance of MP in two different rice cultivars, one of which is the ‘Pokkali’ crop that is Geographical Indication tagged [...]
Looking upstream: analyzing the protection of the drainage area of Amazon rivers
Published: 2023-11-14
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
In the Amazon, aquatic ecosystems provide essential ecosystem services, including transportation, food, and livelihoods for millions of species. Land use changes and management impact these ecosystem services, and these impacts are not limited to the specific areas where they occur but propagate downstream along the drainage network. However, assessment of the accumulated human footprint upstream [...]
Defining Plastic Pollution Hotspots
Published: 2023-11-10
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Fresh Water Studies, Hydrology
Plastic pollution in the natural environment poses a growing threat to ecosystems and human health, prompting urgent needs for monitoring, prevention and clean-up measures, and new policies. To effectively prioritize resource allocation and mitigation strategies, it is key to identify and define plastic hotspots. UNEP’s draft global agreement on plastic pollution mandates prioritizing hotspots, [...]
ACCE DTP EDI Report 2023
Published: 2023-11-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Education, Environmental Sciences, Higher Education
Underrepresentation of minoritised and historically disadvantaged groups is prevalent in PhD recruitment, particularly in environmental sciences. The environmental science focussed ‘Adapting to the Challenges of a Changing Environment’ Doctoral Training Partnership (ACCE DTP) was awarded funding from the Natural Environment Research Council for an EDI-centred project. This project aimed to [...]
A framework for integrated monitoring of status and trends in water balance, water chemistry and contamination of shallow lakes across a remote dynamic freshwater delta
Published: 2023-11-06
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
Systematic and sustainable monitoring approaches capable of tracking the status and trends of keystone characteristics are critical for detecting aquatic ecosystem degradation, identifying the influence of multiple potential stressors, informing environmental protection policy and anticipating future change. At remote lake-rich landscapes, ability to implement and maintain long-term monitoring is [...]
Data for Critical Infrastructure Network Modelling of Natural Hazard Impacts: Needs and Influence on Model Characteristics
Published: 2023-11-03
Subjects: Civil Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Risk Analysis
Natural hazards impact the interdependent infrastructure networks that keep modern society functional. While a variety of critical infrastructure network (CIN) modelling approaches are available to represent CI networks on different scales and analyse the impacts of natural hazards, a recurring challenge for all modelling approaches is the availability and accessibility of sufficiently [...]
Sounding out the river: Seismic and hydroacoustic monitoring of bedload transport in an alluvial river
Published: 2023-11-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Seismological observations provide a non-invasive and continuous means of indirect measurement of fluvial bedload transport (i.e. the transport of coarse granular material, as a function of water depth, in rivers). However, a significant challenge remains in independently characterising the seismic signature of bedload transport from other sources, such as turbulence. Previous research suggested [...]
A Portable low-cost Device to Quantify Advective Gas Fluxes from Mofettes into the Lower Atmosphere: First Application to Starzach Mofettes (Germany)
Published: 2023-10-28
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
In this study, we introduce a portable low-cost device for in situ gas emission measurement from focused point sources of CO2, such as mofettes. We assess the individual sensors' precision with calibration experiments and perform an independent verification of the system's ability to measure gas flow rates in the range of liters per second. The results from one week of continuous CO2 flow [...]
Pacific shoreline erosion and accretion patterns controlled by El Niño/Southern Oscillation
Published: 2023-10-28
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Climate, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Geomorphology, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
In the Pacific Basin, the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is the dominant mode of interannual climate variability, driving substantial changes in oceanographic forcing and impacting Pacific coastlines. Yet, how sandy coasts respond to these basin-scale changes has to date been limited to a few long-term beach monitoring sites, predominantly on developed coasts. Here we use 38 years of Landsat [...]
Last millennium climate variability in the Romanian Carpathians: a synthesis
Published: 2023-10-26
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences
The Carpathian Mountains span Central and Eastern Europe and provide vital ecosystem functions and services. For this reason, the conservation status of the Carpathians is critical due to environmental pressures such as deforestation and the impacts of climate change, which has significantly affected the region's ecosystem dynamics and communities through increased frequency of floods and [...]
A Novel Approach for Predicting Large Wildfires Using Machine Learning Towards Environmental Justice via Environmental Remote Sensing and Atmospheric Reanalysis Data across the United States
Published: 2023-10-26
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences
Large wildfires (>125 hectares) in the United States account for over 95% of the burned area each year. Predicting large wildfires is imperative, however, current wildfire predictive models are region-based and computationally intensive. Using a scalable model based on easily available environmental and atmospheric data, this research aims to accurately predict across the United States whether [...]
Impacts of the African Humid Period termination may have been delayed in the Atlantic Sahara
Published: 2023-10-24
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences
The paleoenvironmental changes recorded at the Khnifiss Lagoon, on the Saharan Atlantic coast, southern Morocco, during the last 3.5 kyrs BP puts another piece to the puzzle on the intricate relationship between North Atlantic climate patterns and climate variations in Northwest Africa. This study shed light on the hydroclimatic dynamics during a pivotal climatic period: the transition from the [...]