Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Environmental Sciences
Chiwi Kawi: Field Report 2025 - Chiricahua Sky Island
Published: 2025-06-07
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Forest Sciences, Plant Sciences
This field report details the environmental dynamics of the Chiricahua Mountains in SE Arizona. Adding to the previous 2022-2023 field report, these observations begin with the impact of the 2023 summer monsoons and the extreme drought conditions leading into 2025. Extraordinary stories from 2024 include wildlife observations of blonde and ginger coati, a lone wolf, jaguar tracks, and a yearling [...]
Unprecedented decline in modern coral reef communities could indicate the onset of the Anthropocene
Published: 2025-06-05
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Stratigraphy
Coral reefs have experienced widespread and accelerated decline, driven by a combination of global and local anthropogenic stressors. To contextualize these changes, we compared the composition of coral reef communities on Curaçao between 1973 and 2023 with that of corals preserved in fossil reefs from the Last Interglacial period (128–116 ka). These fossil reefs, exposed along the island’s [...]
Validation and Metrics for Emissions Detection by Satellite
Published: 2025-05-31
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
Detecting and quantifying greenhouse gas emissions from individual sites by satellite remote sensing has emerged as a powerful new method in recent years. As more and more players enter the field, based on a variety of technologies for both instrumentation and data processing, there is a need for standardized methods for evaluating the performance of these systems. This document is focused on the [...]
A Review of Atmospheric Micro/Nanoplastics: Insights into Source and Fate for Modelling Studies
Published: 2025-05-09
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Environmental Sciences
Micro/nanoplastics (MNPs), as emerging pollutants, have attracted increasing attention due to their potential adverse effects on human health, ecosystems, and climate. The rapid, turbulent, and large-scale nature of atmospheric transport facilitates both horizontal and vertical movement of MNPs over long distances within a short time, largely independent of topographical constraints, thereby [...]
Natural forests of the world - a 2020 baseline for deforestation and degradation monitoring
Published: 2025-04-29
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geographic Information Sciences, Remote Sensing
Informed decisions to reduce deforestation, protect biodiversity, and curb carbon emissions require not just knowing where forests are, but understanding their composition. Identifying natural forests, which serve as critical biodiversity hotspots and major carbon sinks, is particularly valuable. We developed a novel global natural forest map for 2020 at 10 m resolution. This map can support [...]
Spatio-economic valuation of sand in the context of shoreline (in)stability in the Senegal estuary (West Africa), integrating DeltaDTM and LiDAR technology
Published: 2025-04-24
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Computer Sciences, Databases and Information Systems, Earth Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Geomorphology, Natural Resource Economics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Statistics and Probability
Coastal erosion is an increasing challenge in coastal management, resulting from complex interactions between geomorphological features, marine forcing, and anthropogenic interventions. The growing influence of human development and intervention on estuaries and coastal area evolution has led to a global sediment crisis, particularly in tropical or low-lying deltas (for example, Niger, Senegal, [...]
Helmets Labeling Crops: Kenya Crop Type Dataset Created via Helmet-Mounted Cameras and Deep Learning
Published: 2025-04-24
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences
Accurate, up-to-date agricultural monitoring is essential for assessing food production, particularly in countries like Kenya, where recurring climate extremes, including floods and droughts, exacerbate food insecurity challenges. In regions dominated by smallholder farmers, a significant obstacle to effective agricultural monitoring is the limited availability of current, detailed crop-type [...]
Mapping Responsible AI Workflows for Geospatial Data Science: Developing the I-GUIDE Data Ethics Toolkit
Published: 2025-04-24
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Computer Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Library and Information Science, Sustainability
AI workflows in geospatial data science promise substantial societal benefits yet pose persistent challenges of ethical risk, transparency, and reproducibility. Current guidance, ranging from high‑level principles to isolated documentation templates, remains difficult to translate into day‑to‑day research practice, especially for teams operating under tight deadlines. This paper reports the [...]
Leveraging Automated Machine Learning (AutoML) for Urban Climate Emulation
Published: 2025-04-24
Subjects: Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences
Urban climate models are critical for understanding and addressing the impacts of urban climate change. Yet, process-based urban climate models face limitations of high-entry barriers and substantial computing resource consumption, prompting the development of data-driven methods. However, the recently developed urban climate emulators, being location-dependent, are less scalable and may overlook [...]
Evaluating the role of observational uncertainty in climate impact assessments: Temperature-driven yellow fever risk in South America
Published: 2025-04-20
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
Global gridded temperature data sets (GGTDs) vary in their information sources, quality control procedures, generation techniques, and spatial-temporal resolutions, introducing observational uncertainty. This uncertainty is critical not only for studies on current climate conditions but also for future climate change projections, where observational data sets are used for bias correction and [...]
Assessing Temporal Drought Severity in Kenya's Arid And Semi-Arid Landscape Using Google Earth Engine and the Normalized Difference Drought Index
Published: 2025-04-20
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
Arid and Semi-Arid Lands have witnessed a surge in extreme climatic events with devastating environmental and livelihood effects. Understanding the dynamics of these extreme events, including drought, is essential for anticipatory action among resource-dependent communities. This study utilised Earth Observatory Systems and Google Earth Engine to analyse 24 years of Normalised Difference Drought [...]
Assessing legacy nitrogen in groundwater using numerical models of the Long Island aquifer system, New York
Published: 2025-04-15
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
Nitrogen transported along groundwater flow paths in coastal aquifers can contribute substantially to nitrogen loading into surface water receptors, particularly in hydrologic systems dominated by groundwater discharge. Nitrogen entrained in the aquifer is a function of land use and associated nitrogen sources at the time of groundwater recharge, which may differ considerably from present-day [...]
A realistic climate strategy
Published: 2025-04-12
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Sustainability
The international climate strategy is failing. Current policies will act too slowly to prevent rising temperatures from crossing critical climate tipping points. IPCC assessments underestimate the non-linear risks and catastrophic costs of overshooting Paris Agreement targets. Opponents of solar geoengineering cite concerns about moral hazard and other potential risks; however, at this juncture [...]
Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions Poised to Rocket: Modeling the Environmental Impact of LEO Satellite Constellations
Published: 2025-04-12
Subjects: Astrophysics and Astronomy, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physics
The proliferation of satellite megaconstellations in low Earth orbit (LEO) represents a significant advancement in global broadband connectivity. However, we urgently need to understand the potential environmental impacts, particularly greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with these constellations. This study addresses a critical gap in modeling current and future GHG emissions by developing [...]
WITHDRAWN Estimating the contribution of vacant land in mitigating flooding in the Neuse Basin
Published: 2025-04-11
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
WITHDRAWN