Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Environmental Sciences
Groundwater use to reduce natural hazard susceptibilities and inequities in the metacrisis
Published: 2024-09-26
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Long-term thinking is broadly advocated for groundwater - the largest available freshwater resource that is essential for drinking water, irrigation and ecosystems around the world. Long-term thinking is crucial to support sustainability of this slowly renewed resource, but here we propose another crucial, novel and emerging approach for groundwater: short-term use over days and months during or [...]
B3AM: A beamforming toolbox for three-component ambient seismic noise analysis
Published: 2024-09-20
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Geotechnical Engineering
We introduce the code package B3AM for beamforming of three-component ambient noise array data, which is available for MATLAB and Python. We explain the theory behind three-component beamforming and polarisation analysis in particular, provide an overview of the workflow, and discuss the output using a worked example based on the MATLAB implementation. The strength of the presented code package [...]
Heatwaves and Hostilities - Can rising temperatures lead to lasting peace?
Published: 2024-09-13
Subjects: Bioresource and Agricultural Engineering, Earth Sciences, Environmental Public Health, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, International and Area Studies, Nature and Society Relations, Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering, Other Earth Sciences, Public Health, Social and Behavioral Sciences
In this paper, we are going to explore the complex relationship between climate change and global peace. Climate change and wars have a reciprocal relationship. As the war fuels climate change, the latter can catalyze the war too. Through the analysis of the ongoing conflicts across the world, recent technological advancements, and the globalized nature of the world, we will review different [...]
Mapping current and future European potential vegetation to support restoration planning
Published: 2024-09-12
Subjects: Biodiversity, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation
The extent and intactness of natural ecosystems is a key factor enabling species populations to thrive. However, the distribution of ecosystems is changing owing to both climatic and anthropogenic factors. Recently negotiated European policy directives, such as the Nature Restoration Law, argue for the restoration of natural ecosystems. Yet to determine what is to be restored the range of [...]
Half of anthropogenic warming now caused by fossil fuels
Published: 2024-09-12
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Many human activities influence the climate, such as burning fossil fuels, clearing land, growing food, and using refrigerants. Among these, fossil fuels have long been considered the primary driver of global warming. Here, the impact of fossil fuels on historical warming is reassessed using a climate emulator ensemble that accounts for key uncertainties. This reveals that, until the 2020s, [...]
Elevated Methane in Massachusetts and Rhode Island Homes Using Fracked Gas
Published: 2024-09-11
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental Health, Public Health
We surveyed 197 Massachusetts and Rhode Island houses ranging in building style and age to test whether homes served by fracked gas have higher indoor methane concentrations ([CH4]) than in homes without gas. The answer is clearly “Yes”. From basements and single-floor slab homes to third floors of triple deckers, indoor [CH4] in households with gas service was significantly elevated over outdoor [...]
HarvestStat Africa – Harmonized Subnational Crop Statistics for Sub-Saharan Africa
Published: 2024-09-10
Subjects: Agriculture, Environmental Sciences
Sub-Saharan Africa faces severe agricultural data scarcity amidst high food insecurity and a large agricultural yield gap, making crop production data crucial for understanding and enhancing food systems. To address this gap, HarvestStat Africa presents the largest compilation of open-access subnational crop statistics and time-series across Sub-Saharan Africa. Based on agricultural statistics [...]
Whose Priorities? Examining Inequities in Earth Observation Advancements Across Africa
Published: 2024-08-31
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
Earth Observation (EO) technology continues to gain momentum for applications like crop monitoring and food security mapping across Africa. However, the development of these systems and the direction of the sector, even for locally relevant datasets, applications, and solutions, has been and remains largely externally driven. We utilized a database of "leading organizations" in EO for Machine [...]
A 40-Year Remote Sensing Analysis of Spatiotemporal Temperature and Rainfall Patterns in Senegal
Published: 2024-08-31
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Climate change impacts manifest differently worldwide, with many African countries, including Senegal, being particularly vulnerable. The decline in ground observations and limited access to these observations continue to impede research efforts to understand, plan, and mitigate the current and future impacts of climate change. This occurs at a time of rapid growth in Earth observations (EO) [...]
A Phenology-Dependent Analysis for Identifying Key Drought Indicators for Crop Yield based on Causal Inference and Information Theory
Published: 2024-08-29
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
Drought indicators, which are quantitative measurements of drought severity and duration, are used to monitor and predict the risk and effects of drought, particularly in relation to the sustainability of agriculture and water supplies. This research uses causal inference and information theory to discover the drought index, which is the most efficient indicator for agricultural productivity and [...]
The extended Global Lake area, Climate, and Population (GLCP) dataset: Extending the GLCP to include ice, snow, and radiation-related climate variables
Published: 2024-08-27
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Natural Resource Economics, Natural Resources and Conservation, Other Environmental Sciences, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
A changing climate and increasing human population necessitate understanding global freshwater availability. To enable assessment of lake water variability from local-to-global and monthly-to-decadal scales, we extended the Global Lake area, Climate, and Population (GLCP) dataset, which contains monthly lake surface area for 1.42 million lakes with paired basin-level climate and population data [...]
Natural and human drivers of specific conductance and major ion composition in United States lakes
Published: 2024-08-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Specific conductance (SC) and major ion composition are important for understanding and predicting lake water quality and ecosystem responses to global changes and human disturbances. However, little is known about SC and ionic composition for populations of lakes at the continental scale, nor their relationships with natural and human factors operating at multiple spatial scales. We examined the [...]
Novel landforms: integrating people as key drivers of process and form in geomorphology
Published: 2024-08-14
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geomorphology
People alter the earth’s surface in diverse and prolific ways, from enhancing physical and chemical erosion to controlling water transport across drainage networks. These modifications are often faster, more extensive, and wholly novel when compared to natural landscape evolutionary processes. Existing literature largely portrays people as independent of a landscape’s geologic and climatic [...]
The influence of wildfire smoke on ambient chemical species concentrations in the contiguous US
Published: 2024-08-14
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Wildfires are a significant contributor to ambient air pollution and pose a growing public health threat in many parts of the world. Increased wildfire activity over the past few decades has exacerbated smoke exposure across the US, yet our understanding of how wildfire influences specific chemicals and their resulting concentration in smoke remains incomplete. We combine 15 years of daily [...]
A methodologically robust densification function for snow on multiyear Arctic sea ice
Published: 2024-08-13
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics