Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Sustainability
Barrier islands as coupled human–landscape systems
Published: 2021-04-09
Subjects: Geomorphology, Nature and Society Relations, Sustainability
There are nearly 300 barrier islands between Maine and Texas, and of these, at least 70 are intensively developed. Mean population density along the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf coasts are the highest in the country. Such concentrated development exists and continues despite the fact that barrier islands are transient landscapes, not only over geologic time scales of millennia but also within human and [...]
High resolution, annual maps of field boundaries for smallholder-dominated croplands at national scales
Published: 2021-03-12
Subjects: Agriculture, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Life Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Physical and Environmental Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science, Sustainability
Mapping the characteristics of Africa's smallholder-dominated croplands, including the sizes and numbers of fields, can provide critical insights into food security and a range of other socioeconomic and environmental concerns. However, accurately mapping these systems is difficult because there is 1) a spatial and temporal mismatch between satellite sensors and smallholder fields, and 2) a lack [...]
Global climate-driven trade-offs between the water retention and cooling benefits of urban greening
Published: 2021-02-23
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Construction Engineering and Management, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
Heat-related mortality and flooding are pressing challenges for the >4 billion urban population worldwide, exacerbated by increasing urbanization and climate change. Urban greening, such as green roofs and parks, can potentially help address both problems, but the geographical variation of the relative hydrological and thermal performance benefits of such interventions are unknown. Here we [...]
Excessive use of motorized vehicular road transports in megacities such as Delhi and Mumbai (India) and its effects on pollution between the years 2004 and 2011
Published: 2021-02-05
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Sustainability
Effects of the increasing use of motor vehicles are almost unnoticeable in large and congested megacities, urban areas, and metropolitan cities such as Mumbai and Delhi. Furthermore, a significant source of air pollution in several Indian cities is transportation. With the rapid growth in urbanization, industrialization, and modernization in such cities, alongside an increase in pollution, the [...]
The UK needs an open data portal dedicated to coastal flood and erosion hazard risk and resilience
Published: 2020-12-17
Subjects: Geographic Information Sciences, Geomorphology, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Nature and Society Relations, Sustainability
In the UK, coastal flooding and erosion are two of the primary climate-related hazards to communities, businesses, and infrastructure. To better address the ramifications of those hazards, now and into the future, the UK needs to transform its scattered, fragmented coastal data resources into a systematic, integrated, quality-controlled, openly accessible data portal. Such a portal would support [...]
Global Liquefied Natural Gas Expansion Exceeds Demand for Coal-to-gas Switching in Paris Compliant Pathways
Published: 2020-12-04
Subjects: Oil, Gas, and Energy, Sustainability
The shift from coal to natural gas (NG) in the power sector has led to significant reductions in carbon emissions. The shale gas revolution that led to this shift is now fueling a global expansion in liquefied natural gas (LNG) export infrastructure. In this work, we assess the viability of LNG expansion to reduce global carbon emissions through coal-to-gas switching in the power sector under [...]
Operationalising coastal resilience to flood and erosion hazard: A demonstration for England
Published: 2020-12-02
Subjects: Geomorphology, Nature and Society Relations, Physical and Environmental Geography, Sustainability
Resilience is widely seen as an important attribute of coastal systems and, as a concept, is increasingly prominent in policy documents. However, there are conflicting ideas on what constitutes resilience and its operationalisation as an overarching principle of coastal management remains limited. In this paper, we show how resilience to coastal flood and erosion hazard could be measured and [...]
ENSO Drives Child Undernutrition in the Global Tropics
Published: 2020-11-12
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Climate, Environmental Public Health, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Other Environmental Sciences, Public Health, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Sustainability
The El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a principal component of global climate variability known to influence a host of social and economic outcomes, but its systematic effects on human health remain poorly understood. We estimate ENSO’s association with child nutrition at global scale by combining variation in ENSO intensity from 1986-2018 with children’s height and weight from 186 surveys [...]
Socio-technical multi-criteria evaluation of long-term spent nuclear fuel management strategies: Supplementary method
Published: 2020-11-06
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Other Environmental Sciences, Risk Analysis, Sustainability
The paper presents supplementary information about the framework and method for the socio-technical multi-criteria evaluation (STMCE) of spent fuel management strategies (Sci Total Environ, In press; Available on EarthArXiv at DOI:10.31223/X5459S). The STMCE approach consists of (i) a multi-criteria evaluation that provides an ordinal ranking of alternatives based on a list of criterion [...]
Socio-technical multi-criteria evaluation of long-term spent nuclear fuel management strategies: A framework and method
Published: 2020-11-05
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Other Environmental Sciences, Sustainability
In the absence of a federal geologic repository or consolidated, interim storage in the United States, commercial spent fuel will remain stranded at some 75 sites across the country. Currently, these include 18 “orphaned sites” where spent fuel has been left at decommissioned reactor sites. In this context, local communities living close to decommissioned nuclear power plants are increasingly [...]
A comprehensive study to understand the relationship of urbanization and population density with GRACE ΔTWS for selected study regions in India during 2003-2017
Published: 2020-10-24
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Hydrology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Planetary Hydrology, Remote Sensing, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
This work investigates the relationship between urbanization, population density and meteorological variables (temperature & precipitation) on groundwater storage in India during the period January'2003 to January'2017. Variations in groundwater storage have been analysed using Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) derived variations of Terrestrial Water Storage (TWS). In the first part [...]
Comparing patterns of hurricane washover into built and unbuilt environments
Published: 2020-10-23
Subjects: Geomorphology, Nature and Society Relations, Physical and Environmental Geography, Sustainability
Extreme geohazard events can change landscape morphology by redistributing huge volumes of sediment. Event-driven sediment deposition is typically studied in unbuilt settings – despite the ubiquity of occurrence and high economic cost of these geohazard impacts in built environments. Moreover, sedimentary consequences of extreme events in built settings tend to go unrecorded because they are [...]
Serious Gaming for Water Resources Planning and Hazard Mitigation
Published: 2020-08-03
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Education, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
Hydrological hazards lead to a broad range of socio-economic and environmental risks. The development of a resilient community and risk reduction heavily rely on the adoption of holistic watershed master planning whereby the adaptation options consider the risk associated with individual or multiple hydrological hazards occurring simultaneously at a specific location. Such planning approaches [...]
Crop residues are a key feedstock to bioeconomy but available methods for their estimation are highly uncertain
Published: 2020-07-29
Subjects: Agriculture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Natural Resource Economics, Natural Resources and Conservation, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability
Crop residues are acknowledged as a key biomass resource to feed tomorrow’s sustainable bioeconomy. Yet, the quantification of these residues at large geographical scales is primarily reliant upon generic statistical estimations based on empirical functions linking the residues production to the primary crop yield. These useful yet unquestioned functions are developed either using direct evidence [...]
Framework for consequential life cycle assessment of pyrolysis biorefineries: A case study for the conversion of primary forestry residues
Published: 2020-07-26
Subjects: Bioresource and Agricultural Engineering, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability
The development of bioeconomy needs to accelerate in order to get rid of fossil fuels and products. The production of bio-based products and renewable energy sources from the thermochemical conversion of biomass can be a sustainable alternative. Pyrolysis is one of the thermochemical processes that can convert biomass into liquid (bio-oil), solid (biochar) and gaseous (non-condensable gases) [...]