Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Agriculture
Methodological Concerns Regarding RSPO Certification and Plantation Efficiency in Malaysia. A commentary on "Sustainable Palm Oil Certification Inadvertently Affects Production Efficiency in Malaysia" by Zachlod et al. (2025).
Published: 2025-08-21
Subjects: Agriculture, Environmental Studies, Sustainability
This commentary is in response to the recent article by Zachlod et al. (2025), Sustainable palm oil certification inadvertently affects production efficiency in Malaysia published in Communications Earth & Environment, 6(1), 200. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02150-2. It concludes that Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certification leads to reduced plantation efficiency in [...]
Tradeoffs between crop yield, agricultural residue burning, and groundwater depletion in India's wheat belt
Published: 2025-08-15
Subjects: Agriculture
Wheat is a staple crop in India, but yields have stagnated and are projected to further decline due to climate change. One way to increase yields is to ensure timely sowing, which allows the crop to mature prior to damaging heat stress at the end of the growing season. Using novel satellite data products that we developed along with a unique village-level dataset that we collated across India's [...]
Only half of the calories produced on croplands are available for human consumption
Published: 2025-07-24
Subjects: Agriculture, Sustainability
Managing limited agricultural land to feed a growing population with changing diets requires understanding and managing tradeoffs associated with how crops are utilized. Here, we quantify the impact of how 50 crops are used for food, livestock feed, biofuels, and other non-food uses on available calories from 2010 to 2020. We find that, although total calorie production increased by 23.9% from [...]
Satellite Remote Sensing-Based Crop Cover Classification over Europe: Accuracy of Different Methodological Approaches
Published: 2025-07-04
Subjects: Agriculture, Earth Sciences
Crop maps play an important role in a variety of applications, from calculating crop areas and forecasting food production quantities to the analysis of agri-environmental interactions, highlighting the necessity of timely and accurate information on agricultural land use. The availability of remote sensing data has permitted numerous crop classification studies, which have investigated a variety [...]
Food security beyond borders: how crop imports affect drought risk of conflict-affected countries
Published: 2025-06-25
Subjects: Agricultural Science, Agriculture, Climate, Environmental Studies, Hydrology, Meteorology, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Sustainability
Drought events can disrupt food security and increase the risk of violent conflicts. In an interconnected global food system, countries rely on both local food production and imports to meet domestic demand. When assessing the impact of drought risk on national food security, however, imported crops are often overlooked. This study incorporates international crop trade information to understand [...]
Comprehensive quantification of production costs for large-scale kelp aquaculture and cost reduction opportunities
Published: 2025-06-12
Subjects: Agriculture, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Life Sciences, Natural Resource Economics, Other Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
A highly realistic techno-economic analysis (TEA) was developed to assess the cost of production (COP, US $ per fresh tonne kelp) for large-scale kelp aquaculture. The TEA resolves feedbacks across structural design and response, operational requirements and decisions, site properties, and biological response. We apply the TEA to a Saccharina latissima farming operation at a 100m deep, 405 [...]
Comparative Economic and Environmental Analysis of Open Field (Rainfed and Irrigated) and Environmental Agriculture (Screenhouse) Leafy and Pulpy Vegetables Production Systems in North West Nigeria.
Published: 2025-06-06
Subjects: Agriculture
Screenhouse farming demonstrates remarkable water-use efficiency, requiring only 7.00 liters per kg for cabbage, 3.58 liters/kg for lettuce, and 2.38 liters/kg for spinach, a significant contrast to rainfed cabbage at 10,625 liters/kg and rainfed pumpkin at 17,628 liters/kg. This means screenhouse farming uses just 0.066% of the water consumed by rainfed cabbage and 0.014% of the water used by [...]
Optimisation of Agrivoltaic Systems within the Water-Energy-Food Nexus
Published: 2025-06-01
Subjects: Agriculture, Power and Energy, Systems Engineering
Agrivoltaic (APV) systems, which co-locate photovoltaic (PV) panels with agricultural production, have emerged as a promising strategy to simultaneously address water, energy, and food sustainability challenges. However, the optimal design of such systems remains complex due to competing objectives, site-specific conditions, and increasingly stringent policy constraints. This study presents a [...]
Climate Change Impacts on Inland and Black Sea Marine Fisheries: Risks, Adaptation, and Sustainable Investment Pathways
Published: 2025-05-16
Subjects: Agriculture, Animal Sciences, Other Life Sciences
This paper explores climate adaptation and sustainable investment strategies within the fisheries and aquaculture sectors, with a focus on vulnerable regions such as the Black Sea basin. As climate change intensifies environmental pressures and socioeconomic vulnerabilities, building resilience requires an integrated approach combining localized adaptation, mitigation and strategic investment. [...]
Innovation in environmental sustainability: carbon credits with proof of reserve on rural properties according to the standards of regulated markets
Published: 2025-05-07
Subjects: Agriculture
Farms are increasingly recognized as carbon sinks with significant potential to mitigate climate change. This study documents how farms can become positive climate assets by using portable sensors, satellite imagery, blockchain, and AI to quantify and monetize carbon removal. This technological integration enables the issuance of traceable and secure carbon credits, promoting sustainable land use [...]
Nitrogen Mineralization of Cover Crop Residue Depends on Carbon to Nitrogen Ratio and Soil Temperature
Published: 2025-05-06
Subjects: Agriculture
Groundwater nitrate contamination is largely attributed to fertilizer and intensive livestock manure inputs in agricultural systems. California’s Salinas Valley is an area where state policy is aiming to reduce nitrate leaching. Non-legume winter cover crops can help decrease nitrate leaching by scavenging residual soil nitrogen (N) during winter fallow periods following the cropping season. [...]
Assessing the effectiveness of irrigator-driven groundwater conservation programs to drought: a case study of the northwestern Kansas Local Enhanced Management Areas
Published: 2025-04-08
Subjects: Agriculture, Hydrology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
Groundwater pumping for irrigation has led to declining groundwater levels in agricultural areas around the world, including the U.S. High Plains Aquifer. Here, we used a process-based crop model, AquaCrop, to assess the effectiveness of different irrigation management strategies during a synthetic multi-year drought. We focused on the Groundwater Management District 4 Local Enhanced Management [...]
Comprehensive Assessment of Flood Risk and Community Impact of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations in Iowa
Published: 2025-02-05
Subjects: Agriculture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering, Life Sciences
Flooding presents a significant risk to Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), especially in regions increasingly affected by extreme weather events. This study uses advanced geospatial analysis techniques to assess the environmental and economic vulnerabilities of 12,703 CAFOs across Iowa, United States. We focused on the exposure of CAFOS to 100-year and 500-year floodplains, [...]
The role of information in shaping the emerging agricultural soil carbon market
Published: 2025-01-23
Subjects: Agriculture, Life Sciences
The agricultural soil carbon market that has emerged in recent years is widely regarded as a promising opportunity for farmers in the Global North and South, enabling them to generate carbon credits and derive a source of income from the adoption of alternative land management practices which contribute to climate change mitigation by increasing soil carbon sequestration and/or reducing [...]
Global industrial disruption following nuclear war
Published: 2024-12-05
Subjects: Agriculture, International and Area Studies, Other Geography, Risk Analysis
Nuclear war poses catastrophic risks not only through its immediate effects and potential nuclear winter, but also through the disruption of industrial production on which modern civilization depends. In this study we estimate the reduction in global industrial output following a US-Russia nuclear war, as well as a more limited India-Pakistan exchange, by combining geospatial analysis with [...]