Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Environmental Sciences
Beyond efficiency: Disentangling structural and behavioral sufficiency in U.S. residential decarbonization pathways
Published: 2026-03-17
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Decarbonization strategies in the residential sector have largely focused on lowering the carbon intensity of energy supply and improving end-use efficiency. Sufficiency, defined as avoiding unnecessary energy demand while maintaining well-being, remains largely absent from national energy system analyses, obscuring the relative and combined roles of efficiency and sufficiency in reducing energy [...]
Probabilistic modelling of pharmaceutical pollution risk from sewage treatment work discharges using a Bayesian Network: application to a Scottish river catchment
Published: 2026-03-16
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental Health, Statistical Models, Statistics and Probability, Water Resource Management
Pharmaceuticals are increasingly recognised as a class of emerging contaminants of concern in rivers. Their continuous release from human use and variable removal in sewage treatment works (STWs) can produce ecologically relevant concentrations and contribute to antimicrobial resistance. We developed a probabilistic catchment-scale model based on a Bayesian Network (BN) to quantify pharmaceutical [...]
Territorially-Specialized Machine Learning Models for Wildfire Risk Prediction Across Argentina Using Satellite Data and H3 Hexagonal Grids
Published: 2026-03-14
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences
Wildfire risk prediction in large, ecologically diverse countries requires models that account for regional variation in fire drivers. We present GeoAlertAR-ML, a wildfire risk prediction system for Argentina that uses an ensemble of regionally specialized Random Forest classifiers operating over a national hexagonal grid of 13,231 H3 cells. Unlike global fire danger indices or single-model [...]
Inequality’s contribution to global catastrophic risk
Published: 2026-03-13
Subjects: Agriculture, Environmental Sciences, Human Geography, Nature and Society Relations, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Inequality is rising and so is global catastrophic risk. These two problems are not independent from each other. Inequality has historically been a major driver of social instability, and is increasing the risk of global catastrophes today. We demonstrate this by drawing on the rich literature around societal collapse and global catastrophe from both past and modern societies, highlighting the [...]
A terrain-aware approach for image-based urban flood monitoring
Published: 2026-03-12
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Water Resource Management
Urban nuisance flooding is widespread, yet quantitative observations of its magnitude and spatial variability remain limited. Most image-based approaches provide only relative measures of flooded image fraction, while quantitative methods require surveyed ground control and three-dimensional reconstruction. We introduce a terrain aware, perspective weighted framework that converts flooded image [...]
Nationwide deadwood mapping reveals rising mountain forests vulnerability
Published: 2026-03-12
Subjects: Climate, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Forest Sciences
Forest mortality is increasing globally under climate change, making detailed, large-scale monitoring essential for understanding ecosystem responses and guiding adaptive forest management. Here, we present a spatio-temporal assessment of standing deadwood in Switzerland from 2018 to 2023, derived from centimeter-scale high-resolution aerial imagery. We reveal a consistent upslope concentration [...]
Multi-decadal Barrier Island Fate Varies as a Function of Management Strategy
Published: 2026-03-12
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Barrier islands are highly dynamic components of sandy coastlines, making up 10% of coastlines globally. Barriers provide recreational opportunities, protect mainland communities from storms, support tourism, and provide ecologically important habitat. Using a spatially explicit barrier island model, CASCADE, calibrated to represent the historical dynamics of Ocracoke, a barrier island in the [...]
Evaluating global spectral unmixing techniques using imaging spectroscopy data for retrieval of green, non-photosynthetic vegetation, and soil fractional cover
Published: 2026-03-12
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Remote Sensing, Soil Science
Global estimates of fractional cover of green vegetation (GV), non-photosynthetic vegetation (NPV), and soil provide valuable information about the Earth system. As the new generation of Earth visible-to-shortwave infrared (VSWIR) imaging spectrometers take orbit, global fractional cover data will be obtainable with new and improved spectral unmixing algorithms. Using an ASD Field Spectrometer [...]
HIGH-RESOLUTION DIGITAL TERRAIN MODEL FOR THE ITALIAN TERRITORY
Published: 2026-03-12
Subjects: Agriculture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Engineering Education, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geography, Life Sciences, Mining Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Risk Analysis, Social and Behavioral Sciences
High-resolution digital terrain models are essential for environmental planning and territorial analyses, and provide foundations for geomorphological and hydrological applications, including flood and landslide modelling and geo-hydrological hazard and risk assessments. In Italy, airborne LiDAR surveys have improved the representation of terrain morphology in the last decade, but their coverage [...]
Trace element contamination of sand samples by grinding
Published: 2026-03-11
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry
Blanks during powdering processes were examined for major and trace elements using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). Quartz sand (reference CV32.2) was used as a test substrate for powdering with grinding mills of several kinds: an agate mortar grinder, a stainless steel mortar grinder, a hard porcelain mortar grinder, an agate hand mill, and a hard porcelain hand mill. The [...]
Causal Effects of Climatic and Socioeconomic Drivers on Antimicrobial Resistance
Published: 2026-03-11
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Sciences, Public Health
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a rapidly escalating global health crisis threatening human, animal, and environmental well-being. While its spread is often linked to antibiotic use, the complex, nonlinear nature of its environmental and socioeconomic drivers remains poorly understood, rendering traditional analyses insufficient. This study moves beyond simple correlation to investigate the [...]
Estimation of the water table position in unconfined aquifers with MODFLOW 6
Published: 2026-03-10
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology, Water Resource Management
The numerical estimation of the position of the water table in unconfined aquifers is important for many practical applications. Its determination through observations or analytical methods is restricted to a few cases. Therefore, it is often estimated through numerical simulations, which may be affected by numerical artifacts and/or poor stability. We use MODFLOW to estimate the position of the [...]
A Multi-year Analysis of Supraglacial Lake Seasonal Dynamics in the Karakoram
Published: 2026-03-10
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Supraglacial lakes are a key feature of many debris-covered glaciers in the Karakoram region. These lakes are highly dynamic, often forming and draining rapidly on seasonal timescales. However, due to their small size and transient nature, they are largely absent from regional and global glacial lake inventories. In this study, we used Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery to examine [...]
Bridging ERA5 Reanalysis Data and Regulatory Air Dispersion Modelling: A Transparent Workflow Implemented through the WindRose Toolkit
Published: 2026-03-07
Subjects: Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Regulatory atmospheric dispersion models such as AERMOD and CALPUFF are widely adopted for Environmental Impact Assessments involving atmospheric emissions. Despite their scientific maturity and regulatory acceptance, the practical application of these modelling systems outside the North American context is often constrained by the limited availability of suitable meteorological datasets. In many [...]
Carbon mineralization in CO2-seawater-basalt systems: Reactive transport dynamics and vesicular pore architecture controls
Published: 2026-03-06
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences
Carbon mineralization in basaltic rocks offers a promising pathway for rapid, permanent CO2 storage, yet the fundamental controls on reactive transport, precipitation patterns, and permeability evolution under seawater conditions remain poorly constrained. This study integrates flow-through column experiments at 80°C with CO2-acidified seawater, geochemical modeling, and multi-scale pore imaging [...]