Preprints

Filtering by Subject: Sustainability

Groundwater connections and sustainability in social-ecological systems

Xander Huggins, Tom Gleeson, Juan Castilla-Rho, et al.

Published: 2022-04-08
Subjects: Dynamical Systems, Hydrology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Nature and Society Relations, Sustainability, Water Resource Management

Groundwater resources are connected with social, economic, ecological, and Earth systems. We introduce the framing of groundwater-connected systems to better represent the nature and complexity of these connections in data collection, scientific investigations, governance and management approaches, and groundwater education. Groundwater-connected systems are social, economic, ecological, or Earth [...]

Knowledge co-production reveals nuanced societal dynamics and sectoral connections in mapping sustainable human-natural systems

Katrina Szetey, Enayat A. Moallemi, Brett A. Bryan

Published: 2022-04-08
Subjects: Human Geography, Nature and Society Relations, Sustainability

The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) encompass environmental, social, and economic dimensions which are linked to the characteristics of place and have a strong local dimension. They are interconnected at local scales in complex ways which makes progress towards them difficult to predict. To understand how these interconnections play out at the local scale, we used knowledge co-production [...]

Economic and biophysical limits to seaweed-based climate solutions

Julianne DeAngelo, Benjamin Saenz, Isabella Arzeno-Soltero, et al.

Published: 2022-02-11
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Natural Resource Economics, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Sustainability

Net-zero greenhouse gas emissions targets are driving interest in opportunities for biomass-based negative emissions and bioenergy, including from marine sources such as seaweed. Yet the biophysical and economic limits to farming seaweed at scales relevant to the global carbon budget have not been assessed in detail. We use coupled seaweed growth and technoeconomic models to estimate the costs of [...]

Quantifying Streamflow Depletion from Groundwater Pumping: A Practical Review of Past and Emerging Approaches for Water Management

Sam Zipper, William H Farmer, Andrea Brookfield, et al.

Published: 2022-01-07
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Hydrology, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Sustainability, Water Resource Management

Groundwater pumping can cause reductions in streamflow (“streamflow depletion”) that must be quantified for conjunctive management of groundwater and surface water resources. However, streamflow depletion cannot be measured directly and is challenging to estimate because pumping impacts are masked by streamflow variability due to other factors. Here, we conduct a management-focused review of [...]

Evaluating essential features of proppant transport at engineering scales combining field measurements with machine learning algorithms

Xiaoyu Wang, Lei Hou, Xueyu Geng, et al.

Published: 2021-12-06
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Geology, Hydraulic Engineering, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Sustainability

The characterization of the proppant transport at a field-engineering scale is still challenging due to the lack of direct subsurface measurements. Features that control the proppant transport may link the experimental and numerical observations to the practical operations at a field scale. To improve the numerical and laboratory simulations, we propose a machine-learning-based workflow to [...]

Thresholds in road network functioning on US Atlantic and Gulf barrier islands

Sofia Aldabet, Evan B Goldstein, Eli Lazarus

Published: 2021-12-04
Subjects: Analysis, Geomorphology, Nature and Society Relations, Sustainability

Barrier islands predominate the Atlantic and Gulf coastlines of the USA, where development exceeds national trends. Forward-looking models of barrier island dynamics often include feedbacks with management practices – particularly those aimed at mitigating damage to buildings from natural hazards – and how real estate markets may be linked to barrier island dynamics. However, models thus far do [...]

Can machine learning improve carbon storage? Synergies of deep learning, uncertainty quantification and intelligent process control

Thilo Wrona, Indranil Pan

Published: 2021-12-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geophysics and Seismology, Sustainability

As we transition from fossil fuel to renewable energy, negative emission technologies, such ascarbon capture and storage (CCS), can help us reduce CO2 emissions. Effective CO2 storage requires: (1) detailed site characterization, (2) regular, integrated risk assessment, and (3) flexible design and operation. We believe that recent advances in machine learning coupled with uncertainty [...]

A review of model-based scenario analysis of poverty for informing sustainability

QI LIU, Zhaoxia Guo, Lei Gao, et al.

Published: 2021-11-22
Subjects: Applied Mathematics, Dynamic Systems, Environmental Sciences, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability

Ending poverty in all its forms everywhere is the first goal being targeted by the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Poverty eradication is a long-term process that faces the challenges of many uncertainties and complex interactions with other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In order to better understand poverty and contribute to addressing poverty in a sustainable [...]

Geographically-resolved social cost of anthropogenic emissions accounting for both direct and climate-mediated effects

Jennifer Burney, Geeta G Persad, Jonathan Proctor, et al.

Published: 2021-11-17
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Environmental Sciences, Physical and Environmental Geography, Sustainability

The magnitude and distribution of physical and societal impacts from long-lived greenhouse gases are insensitive to the emission source location; the same is not true for major co-emitted short-lived pollutants like aerosols. Here we combine novel global climate model simulations with established response functions to show that identical aerosols emitted from different regions (Brazil, China, [...]

Reproducibility in subsurface geoscience

Michael J. Steventon, Christopher Aiden-Lee Jackson, Mark Ireland, et al.

Published: 2021-10-26
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Cosmochemistry, Earth Sciences, Environmental Education, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Geomorphology, Geophysics and Seismology, Glaciology, Hydrology, Mineral Physics, Natural Resource Economics, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Paleobiology, Paleontology, Sedimentology, Soil Science, Speleology, Stratigraphy, Sustainability, Tectonics and Structure, Volcanology, Water Resource Management

Reproducibility, the extent to which consistent results are obtained when an experiment or study is repeated, sits at the foundation of science. The aim of this process is to produce robust findings and knowledge, with reproducibility being the screening tool to benchmark how well we are implementing the scientific method. However, the re-examination of results from many disciplines has caused [...]

Efficiency improvement and technology choice for energy and emission reductions of the residential sector

Vassilis Daioglou, Efstratios Mikropoulos, David Gernaat, et al.

Published: 2021-10-11
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Studies, Sustainability

The residential sector currently accounts for one fifth of global energy use and corresponding greenhouse gas emissions, largely driven by increasing demand for space heating and cooling. Climate change mitigation action requires these to reduce, but the exact decarbonization strategies and their heterogeneity is unclear. We use a regional recursive dynamic energy system model with an explicit [...]

Deadly Heat Exposure in an Urbanized World

Steffen Lohrey, Camilo Mora, Diana Reckien, et al.

Published: 2021-10-11
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Sciences, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Sustainability

Climate-change exposes an increasing share of the world population to potentially lethal heat, a threat accentuated by rapid urbanization. Here, we project occurrence of future deadly heat for urban agglomerations around the world until 2080 by using CMIP6 climate model projections of temperature and relative humidity, urbanization prospects and GDP projections from the SSP scenarios. We show [...]

Data requirements to tackle global deforestation through mandatory due diligence

Margot A Wood, Fanny Gauttier, Helen Bellfield, et al.

Published: 2021-08-19
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Sustainability

The world’s forests are highly threatened, mainly by agricultural expansion, driving biodiversity loss and greenhouse gas emissions, and disproportionately impacting rights and livelihoods of indigenous peoples and local communities. Zero-deforestation voluntary commitments to address deforestation have not significantly reversed deforestation and have made even less progress in related human [...]

Safety and Belonging in the Field: A Checklist for Educators

Sarah E Greene, Gawain T. Antell, Jake Atterby, et al.

Published: 2021-08-19
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Biogeochemistry, Climate, Cosmochemistry, Earth Sciences, Education, Environmental Education, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Fresh Water Studies, Geochemistry, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Geology, Geomorphology, Geophysics and Seismology, Glaciology, Higher Education, Human Geography, Hydrology, Life Sciences, Meteorology, Mineral Physics, Natural Resource Economics, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Nature and Society Relations, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Other Geography, Other Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Planetary Sciences, Outdoor Education, Paleobiology, Paleontology, Physical and Environmental Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Planetary Biogeochemistry, Planetary Geochemistry, Planetary Geology, Planetary Geomorphology, Planetary Geophysics and Seismology, Planetary Glaciology, Planetary Hydrology, Planetary Mineral Physics, Planetary Sciences, Planetary Sedimentology, Remote Sensing, Sedimentology, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Soil Science, Spatial Science, Speleology, Stratigraphy, Sustainability, Tectonics and Structure, Volcanology, Water Resource Management

Ensuring taught fieldwork is a positive, generative, collective, and valuable experience for all participants requires considerations beyond course content. To guarantee safety and belonging, participants’ identities (backgrounds and protected characteristics) must be considered as a part of fieldwork planning and implementation. Furthermore, getting fieldwork right is an important step in [...]

Creating a climate changed future with the sea level rise interactive- fiction game ‘Lagos2199’

Patrick W Keys, Matthew P Keys

Published: 2021-07-26
Subjects: Climate, Education, Environmental Education, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Instructional Media Design, International and Area Studies, Nature and Society Relations, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical and Environmental Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Science and Mathematics Education, Sustainability

Story-based futures serve an important role in climate change scenario development. Stories are particularly useful in exploring sea level rise possibilities, since we know many coastal areas are specifically vulnerable to accelerating rises in sea level. This discrete change in coastline is different from most other climate change impacts, and offers a clear basis for scientifically-informed, [...]

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