Preprints

Filtering by Subject: Sustainability

Data, knowledge and modeling challenges for science-informed management of river deltas

Rafael Jan Pablo Schmitt, Philip S. J. Minderhoud

Published: 2023-03-16
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering, Other Environmental Sciences, Sustainability, Water Resource Management

450 million people live on river deltas and thus on land that is precariously low above the sea level and sinking because of human activities and natural processes. Although global debates around coastal risk typically focus on sea level rise, it is sinking lands and rising seas that together endanger lives and livelihoods in river deltas. However, the ability to quantify and address those risks [...]

The Digital Environmental Footprint - a holistic framework of Digital Sustainability

Gereon Mewes

Published: 2023-03-03
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Studies, Sustainability

This paper examines the different ways in which the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector negatively affects the environment. To capture environmental externalities beyond the common but limited carbon footprint, a novel holistic framework of digital sustainability was created - the Digital Environmental Footprint (DEF). To apply and test the DEF, the ICT sector was evaluated [...]

Rapid seaward expansion of seaport footprints worldwide

Dhritiraj Sengupta, Eli Lazarus

Published: 2023-02-25
Subjects: Civil Engineering, Geographic Information Sciences, Geomorphology, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing, Sustainability

Over recent decades, seaports around the world have been expanding seaward through land reclamation at a scale and pace that geospatial analysis of global satellite imagery is now revealing. Understanding patterns of seaport growth is necessary to accurately estimate risk to seaport infrastructure from future coastal hazards. What the global trend in seaport expansion may mean for climate [...]

Global accessibility of groundwater remains highly uncertain

Robert Reinecke, Sebastian Gnann, Lina Stein, et al.

Published: 2023-02-11
Subjects: Geology, Hydrology, Sustainability, Water Resource Management

Groundwater is essential for maintaining healthy ecosystems and securing human access to freshwater. Here we show that current estimates of global groundwater accessibility by ecosystems and humans are highly uncertain. To quantify this uncertainty, we define three categories of accessibility and investigate four global groundwater models. Averaged across these models, we estimate that 23% [most [...]

Uncertainties in Water Scarcity Index due to water use and climate changes: Case of two Legal Amazon watersheds

PAULO ROGENES MONTEIRO PONTES, José Rafael de Albuquerque Cavalcanti, Edivaldo Afonso de Oliveira Serrão, et al.

Published: 2022-12-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability, Water Resource Management

Water scarcity is a major global problem with the potential to impact socioeconomic development and the environment. Currently, mitigating issues related to the lack of water has become an aim for the public and private sectors. Water scarcity can be estimated by the ratio between water use (withdrawal or consumption) and water availability (a minimum discharge), named Water Stress Index (WSI). [...]

The Dry Sky: Futures for Humanity’s Modification of the Atmospheric Water Cycle

Patrick W Keys, Lan Wang-Erlandsson, Michele-Lee Moore, et al.

Published: 2022-12-22
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Fresh Water Studies, Hydrology, Meteorology, Natural Resource Economics, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Nature and Society Relations, Sustainability, Water Resource Management

Humanity is modifying the atmospheric water cycle, via land use, climate change, air pollution, and weather modification. Given the implications of this, we present a theoretical framing of atmospheric water as an economic good. Historically, atmospheric water was tacitly considered a ‘public good’ since it was neither actively consumed (rival) nor controlled (exclusive). However, given [...]

Standardised indices to monitor energy droughts

Sam Allen, Noelia Otero

Published: 2022-12-01
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability

To mitigate the effects of climate change, energy systems are becoming increasingly reliant on renewable energy sources. Since these energy sources are typically dependent on the prevailing weather, renewable energy systems are susceptible to shortages during certain weather conditions. As renewable sources become larger contributors to the energy mix, the risks associated with these shortages, [...]

How reproducible is geophysical research? A review of the availability of code, software and data in journals

Mark Ireland, Guillermo Algarabel, Michael Steventon, et al.

Published: 2022-11-17
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability

Geophysical research frequently makes use of agreed methodologies, formally published software, and bespoke code to process and analyse data. The reliability and repeatability of these methods is vital in maintaining the integrity of research findings and thereby avoiding the dissemination of unreliable results. In recent years there has been an increased attention on aspects of reproducibility, [...]

The unknown fate of macroplastic in mountain rivers

Maciej Liro, Tim van Emmerik, Anna Zielonka, et al.

Published: 2022-11-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Geology, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Life Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy, Sustainability, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology, Water Resource Management

Mountain rivers are typically seen as relatively pristine ecosystems, supporting numerous goods (e.g., water resources) for human populations living not only in the mountain regions but also downstream from them. Recent evidence suggests, however, that mountain river valleys in populated areas can be substantially polluted by macroplastic (plastic item > 5 mm). It is, however, unknown how [...]

Air Quality-Related Equity Implications of U.S. Decarbonization Policy

Paul D Picciano, Sebastian David Eastham, Minghao Qiu, et al.

Published: 2022-10-22
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Sustainability

We quantify potential air pollution exposure reductions resulting from U.S. federal carbon policy, and consider the implications of resulting health benefits for exposure disparities across racial/ethnic groups. We assess reductions in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions of 50% in 2030 relative to 2005 levels, comparable in magnitude to the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Using energy-economic scenarios [...]

Trait-based modeling revealed higher microbial diversity leads to greater ecological resilience in response to an ecosystem disturbance

Jiaze Wang, Victoria J. Coles, Michael R. Stukel, et al.

Published: 2022-10-15
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Earth Sciences, Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology Life Sciences, Microbiology, Oceanography, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology

To quantitatively understand the ecological resilience of an ecosystem with specialized habitats, we focused on deep-sea microbial communities and simulated the response of diverse microbes in specialized habitats to a pulse ecosystem disturbance - the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Two microbial communities with equivalent metabolic libraries were acclimated to the presence [...]

Plant Breeding Biomolecular Classification in Quantum Bayesianism (QBism) Physics-Informed Neural Network Architecture

Karriem A.J. Perry, Barbara S Keary

Published: 2022-08-31
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Climate, Other Statistics and Probability, Plant Sciences, Probability, Quantum Physics, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Soil Science, Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics, Sustainability, Systems Biology

In this brief communication, biomolecular plant breeding multi-classification inference is discussed when leveraging the advantages of Physics-informed Neural Network (PiNN) architecture. Albeit, the expected utility of Partial Differential Equation (PDE) inspired neural networks resides in its performance under limited data availability; a variety of neural network configurations result from PDE [...]

Autonomous Passage Planning for a Polar Vessel

Jonathan Daniel Smith, Samuel Hall, George Coombs, et al.

Published: 2022-08-31
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Earth Sciences, Other Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability

We introduce a method for long-distance maritime route planning in polar regions, taking into account complex changing environmental conditions. The method allows the construction of optimised routes, describing the three main stages of the process: discrete modelling of the environmental conditions using a non-uniform mesh, the construction of mesh-optimal paths, and path smoothing. In order to [...]

Fighting symptom or root cause? - The need for shifting the focus in climate politics from greenhouse gases to environmental protection

Thomas Rinder, Frederike Neuber, Christoph von Hagke

Published: 2022-08-16
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Sustainability

Addressing the environmental crisis requires a substantial change of our current lifestyle. Yet, in media coverage and political communication, climate change has taken the lead over other aspects such as biodiversity loss and one may sometimes get the impression that reducing greenhouse gas emissions is fighting the root cause itself. The atmosphere, however, does not respond linearly to our [...]

Majority of 21st century global irrigation expansion has been in water stressed regions

Piyush Mehta, Stefan Siebert, Matti Kummu, et al.

Published: 2022-08-09
Subjects: Agriculture, Spatial Science, Sustainability

The expansion of irrigated agriculture has increased global crop production but resulted in widespread stress to freshwater resources. Ensuring that increases in irrigated production only occur in places where water is relatively abundant is a key objective of sustainable agriculture, and knowledge of how irrigated land has evolved is important for measuring progress towards water sustainability. [...]

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