Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Environmental Sciences
Spectral Mixture Analysis as a Unified Framework for the Remote Sensing of Evapotranspiration
Published: 2018-10-26
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
This analysis proposes a unified framework for estimation of evapotranspiration (ET) using spectral mixture analysis (SMA) based on globally standardized substrate, vegetation, and dark (SVD) endmembers (EMs). Using all available Landsat 8 scenes from a month in the peak growing season (June) in a diverse 90 x 120 km region in northern California, we characterize the relationship between each of [...]
Achieving the 17 sustainable development goals within 9 planetary boundaries
Published: 2018-10-15
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability
Near-term gains on socio-economic goals under the 2030 Agenda could reduce the Earth system ‘safety margin’ represented by the nine planetary boundaries. We built an intentionally simple global systems simulation model, Earth3, that combines a socio-economic model of human activity with a biophysical model of the global environment. Earth3 fills a key gap in the family of integrated models, by [...]
Lake area constraints on past hydroclimate in the western United States: Application to Pleistocene Lake Bonneville
Published: 2018-10-10
Subjects: Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Fresh Water Studies, Geology, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Lake shoreline remnants found in basins of the western United States reflect wetter conditions during Pleistocene glacial periods. The size distribution of paleolakes, such as Lake Bonneville, provide a first-order constraint on the competition between regional precipitation delivery and evaporative demand. In this contribution we downscale previous work using lake mass balance equations and [...]
The Empirical Bases for the Earth3 Model: Technical Notes on the Sustainable Development Goals and Planetary Boundaries
Published: 2018-10-01
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability
This technical note presents the bases for the Earth3 model system with a focus on how SDGs and Planetary Boundaries are assessed in the model. This includes data selection, sources, analysis and forecasting methods. We also present the threshold levels that have been chosen for the respective SDGs and Planetary Boundaries.
Vulnerability of Louisiana’s coastal wetlands to present-day rates of relative sea-level rise
Published: 2018-10-01
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Risk Analysis, Sedimentology, Soil Science, Stratigraphy, Sustainability
Coastal Louisiana has lost about 5,000km2 of wetlands over the past century and concern exists whether remaining wetlands will persist while facing some of the world’s highest rates of relative sea-level rise (RSLR). Here we analyse an unprecedented data set derived from 274 rod surface-elevation table-marker horizon stations, to determine present-day surface-elevation change, vertical accretion [...]
Learning about climate change uncertainty enables flexible water infrastructure planning
Published: 2018-09-30
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Climate, Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Statistics and Probability, Water Resource Management
Water resources planning requires making decisions about infrastructure development under substantial uncertainty in future regional climate conditions. However, uncertainty in climate change projections will evolve over the 100-year lifetime of a dam as new climate observations become available. Flexible strategies in which infrastructure is proactively designed to be changed in the future have [...]
Wind tunnel tests inform Ammophila planting spacing for dune management
Published: 2018-09-24
Subjects: Biology, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Life Sciences, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology
Coastal dunes are invaluable natural resources that bu er upland areas. Vegetation is key in dune development and stabilization. Dunes form with sufficient wind, sand source, and obstruction; plants are the ideal obstruction. Storms o en erode foredunes and coastal managers replant vegetation to re-establish the necessary obstruction for sand accretion and dune growth. We used a wind tunnel to [...]
Reactionary fence installation for post-Superstorm Sandy dune recovery
Published: 2018-09-24
Subjects: Biology, Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Sustainability
Dunes are invaluable to coastal areas as dynamic buffers to erosion during high tides and storms, but do not accrue naturally in developed areas without assistance. Wood paling fencing is commonly used to cultivate dune development and thereby increase the protection afforded to coastal areas. In 2012, Superstorm Sandy devastated the mid-Atlantic, especially New Jersey where many areas are still [...]
Scoping the potential usefulness of seasonal climate forecasts for solar power management
Published: 2018-09-16
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability
Solar photovoltaic energy is widespread worldwide and particularly in Europe, which became in 2016 the first region in the world to pass the 100 GW of installed capacity. As for all the renewable energy sources, for an intelligent management of solar power, it is essential to have reliable and accurate information about weather/climate conditions that affect the production of electricity. This [...]
GLOBAL WATER TRANSFER MEGAPROJECTS: A SOLUTION FOR THE WATER-FOOD-ENERGY NEXUS?
Published: 2018-09-07
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
Globally, freshwater is unevenly distributed, both in space and time. Climate change, land use alteration, and increasing human exploitation will further increase the pressure on water as a resource for human welfare and on inland water ecosystems. Water transfer megaprojects (WTMP), i.e. large-scale engineering interventions to divert water within and between catchments, represent an approach in [...]
Mapping and Monitoring Rice Agriculture with Multisensor Temporal Mixture Models
Published: 2018-08-31
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Soil Science
Rice feeds more humans than any other crop on Earth. Accurate prediction of the timing and volume of rice harvests therefore has considerable global importance for food security and economic stability, especially in the developing world. Optical and thermal satellite imagery can provide critical constraints on the spatial extent of rice planting and the timing of rice phenology. We present a [...]
A mathematical morphology approach to the identification of drought events in space and time
Published: 2018-08-30
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
Drought events occur worldwide and possibly incur severe consequences. Trying to understand and characterizing drought events is of primordial importance in order to improve the preparedness for coping with future events. In this paper, drought events are characterized by exploiting their spatio-temporal nature. Operators borrowed from mathematical morphology are applied to represent drought [...]
Mechanistic coupling of social and biophysical models of water management through agent typologies
Published: 2018-08-30
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Modeling the coupled social and biophysical dynamics of water resource systems is increasingly important due to expanding population, fundamental transitions in the uses of water, and changes in global and regional water cycling driven by climate change. Models that explicitly represent the coupled dynamics of biophysical and social components of water resource systems are challenging to design [...]
Diatom community responses to long-term multiple stressors at Lake Gusinoye, Siberia
Published: 2018-08-29
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Global freshwater systems are threatened by multiple anthropogenic stressors via impacts on ecological structure and function necessary to maintain their health. In order to properly manage freshwater ecosystems, we must have a better understanding of the ecological response to human‐induced stressors, especially in multiple stressor environments. When long‐term observational records are scarce [...]
Powers of 10: cross-scale optimization of social agencies for rapid climate and sustainability action
Published: 2018-08-27
Subjects: Education, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geography, International and Area Studies, Library and Information Science, Life Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Sustainability
Achieving the goals of the Paris Agreement and related sustainability initiatives will require halving of greenhouse gas emissions each decade from now on through to 2050, when net zero emissions should be achieved. To reach such significant reductions requires a rapid and strategic scaling of existing and emerging technologies and practices, coupled with economic and social transformation and [...]