Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Environmental Sciences
Hydrogeology and assessment of the effect of oil-production activities in the Midway Valley area, western Kern County, California
Published: 2026-04-15
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
The southwestern San Joaquin Valley, California includes oil fields and oil-field water disposal facilities, (ponds and injection wells). The Tulare Formation and overlying alluvium comprise the main aquifers in the study area and are commonly used for produced water disposal. Water quality in the aquifers is naturally brackish (total dissolved solids (TDS) 3,000-10,000 mg/L) across most of the [...]
Accretionary Pedogenesis and Holocene Climate Evolution in Black Soil Region of Northeast China: Evidence from a Sedimentary Profile
Published: 2026-04-15
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
The black soil region of the Songnen Plain, one of the world's three major black soil belts, is critical for China's grain security, yet the formation mechanism of its thick, organic-rich soils remains insufficiently quantified. In this study, we investigate the ZYHPM01 profile in the eastern Songnen Plain using grain-size end-member analysis (EMA), multi-proxy geochemical tracers, and [...]
Geostatistical Assessment of Shallow Groundwater Risk in Urban Coastal Virginia: A Case Study from Virginia Beach
Published: 2026-04-14
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Geology, Hydrology, Life Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Water Resource Management
Urban groundwater assessments in coastal cities often rely on public monitoring datasets that are spatially uneven and temporally discontinuous. This study evaluates shallow groundwater risk in Virginia Beach, Virginia, using 30 years of records (1991–2020) from 121 monitoring wells for groundwater levels and 55 wells with groundwater‑quality data for chloride (Cl), iron (Fe), and manganese (Mn). [...]
Structural–carbon decoupling and forest structural thinning in degrading forests of Southwestern Nigeria using GEDI LiDAR and multi-sensor data fusion
Published: 2026-04-13
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geography
Accurate monitoring of forest degradation requires indicators that capture both structural condition and carbon dynamics. While canopy height derived from spaceborne LiDAR is widely used as a proxy for forest condition, its ability to represent aboveground biomass (AGB) under ongoing degradation remains uncertain. This study examines the relationship between canopy height and AGB in tropical [...]
HydroScholar AI: A Collaborative Agent for End-to-End Automated Hydrological Research Lifecycle
Published: 2026-04-09
Subjects: Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Hydrological research relies on multi-stage computational workflows that are often slow, fragmented across disparate tools, and inconsistently documented, limiting reproducibility. This study presents HydroScholar AI, an agentic, human-in-the-loop platform that consolidates the plan-to-paper research lifecycle into a single interactive automated framework. From a natural-language prompt, the [...]
Simulation of Groundwater Flow To Evaluate Hydrogeologic Controls on a PFAS Plume, Coakley Landfill Superfund Site, Rockingham County, New Hampshire
Published: 2026-04-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Sciences, Geology, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), including perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), have been detected at combined concentrations above 2,000 nanograms per liter (ng/L) at groundwater seep locations near the Coakley Landfill Superfund site, in North Hampton, New Hampshire. The landfill was active from 1972 to 1985. An impermeable cap was placed on the [...]
Geochemical and granulometric fingerprints of 8,200-year Westerly variability recorded in inner-fjord lake sediments from Central Svalbard
Published: 2026-04-08
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The Arctic is warming faster than any other region on Earth. As sea-ice diminishes, surface boundary conditions (roughness and air-sea coupling) change and open-water fetch increases, potentially strengthening the effective wind forcing on Arctic coasts. These changes can be recorded in lake sediments through the deposition of wind-blown grains and elements, offering insights into past wind and [...]
Changing the Chilly Climate: Observations on Gender Diversity and Inclusion at a Geoscience Conference in the Netherlands
Published: 2026-04-08
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Higher Education, Social and Behavioral Sciences
The aim of this study was to observe audience participation in a conference where the planned structures (presenters, keynotes and chairs) had an equal gender balance. The collected data can give an indication of the effectiveness of diversity and inclusion initiatives beyond the planned structures of the conference itself. We observed behaviours of attendees of the annual Dutch Earth and [...]
Multi-Sensor Monitoring of Wetland Inundation Using a Machine Learning and Data Fusion Framework
Published: 2026-04-03
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Statistics and Probability
Continuous, high-resolution inundation data are needed to understand how small-scale, short-term wetland flooding influences global methane emissions and carbon cycling. Small (less than 1,000 m²), variably inundated wetlands are significant methane sources, yet coarse satellite products often miss their dynamics. Integrating optical and radar imagery with resolutions less than 30 m offers a [...]
The Anthropocene as a Multi-Level Stability Landscape Regimes, Transitions, and Reorganization of the Human–Earth System
Published: 2026-04-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Understanding the evolution of the human–Earth system over decadal-to-centennial timescales remains a central challenge in Earth system science. The Anthropocene is commonly described using trajectories, tipping elements, and scenario pathways, which capture non-linear dynamics but do not provide a unified representation of regime structure and transitions at planetary scale. Here we introduce a [...]
Meteorological Drought Magnitude, Duration, and Intensity in the Past and Future Climate of Eastern Tigray, Northern Ethiopia
Published: 2026-04-02
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
Drought assessment is a critical component of risk management in the comprehensive analysis of drought impacts. This study assessed the meteorological drought events under the past and future climate of Eastern Tigray, Northern Ethiopia, with the principal objective of enhancing early warnings and better drought disaster response mechanisms. To predict future climate, delta scenarios were created [...]
A LASSO-based reduced-form CMAQ model for predicting ozone and PM2.5 responses to emission changes in South Korea
Published: 2026-03-30
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
Reduced-form models of the Community Multiscale Air Quality Modeling System (CMAQ) enable efficient prediction of air quality responses to emission changes. In this study, we developed a reduced-form CMAQ model based on the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) to approximate CMAQ outputs in high-dimensional settings where the number of emission variables exceeds the number of [...]
Building a representative UAV RGB reference dataset for national-scale satellite mapping of invasive goldenrods (Solidago spp.): an efficient workflow and accuracy drivers
Published: 2026-03-28
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
Reliable wall-to-wall mapping of invasive plants from satellite imagery depends on representative reference data and transparent quality control. Here we present a nationally distributed UAV RGB reference dataset and an end-to-end workflow designed to support national-scale satellite mapping of invasive goldenrods (Solidago spp.) in Poland. During the peak flowering period (August–September [...]
A snag for nutrient fertilization: decoupled production and export
Published: 2026-03-28
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Microbiology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Interest in nutrient fertilization waned after inconclusive field experiments, but has resurged. Collating Southern Ocean \textit{in-situ} observations and available fertilization simulations, we find phytoplankton primary production and organic carbon export are uncorrelated in the largest high-nutrient-low-chlorophyll (HNLC) region, while model estimates cast doubt on realistic deployments [...]
No place to hide? Regional resilience and vulnerability to global catastrophic risk
Published: 2026-03-27
Subjects: Agriculture, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Food Science, Forest Sciences, Geography, Public Health
What places on Earth are most resilient to global catastrophic risk (GCR)? We provide the first study of what locations are more resilient against the impacts of nuclear war, near-Earth objects, large-magnitude volcanic eruptions, large-scale cyberattacks, high altitude electromagnetic pulse, geomagnetic storms and pandemics. This shows there is no place on Earth which is resilient against all [...]