Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Environmental Monitoring
Multi-scale measurements and temporally resolved modeling of methane emissions at natural gas distribution stations
Published: 2026-07-02
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Oil, Gas, and Energy
Methane (CH4) emissions from natural gas distribution stations are not well characterized by measurements, contributing to uncertainty in urban emissions inventories and mitigation strategies. We conducted a multi-scale, multi-temporal study of four distribution stations in Calgary, Alberta, combining component- and facility-level measurements with modeling to quantify, attribute, and compare [...]
Detecting industrial ammonia and ethylene point sources with the thermal bands of Landsat 8 and 9
Published: 2026-07-02
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences
Industrial point sources of ammonia (NH₃) and ethylene (C₂H₄) are poorly constrained in current inventories, in part because satellites tend to offer either fine spatial detail or frequent revisits. We show that the two thermal-infrared bands of the Landsat 8 and 9 Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS), though built for land-surface monitoring, can detect and spatially resolve such plumes at 100 m [...]
Mapping ethylene and acetylene plumes using satellite high-resolution imaging spectrometers that exploit the SWIR spectrum
Published: 2026-06-30
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences
Ethylene (C2H4) and acetylene (C2H2) are reactive hydrocarbons that degrade air quality through ozone formation and atmospheric oxidation. However, space-based monitoring of plumes from these gases remains largely unexplored. Here, we demonstrate, for the first time, that ethylene and acetylene point-source emissions can be detected and quantified using shortwave infrared (SWIR) imaging [...]
Spectrally structured CNN encoding for interpretable and edge-ready fractional vegetation cover mapping using UAS multispectral and imaging spectroscopy
Published: 2026-06-30
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Biogeochemistry, Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Remote Sensing
Fractional vegetation cover (FVC) is a key indicator of semi-arid ecosystem condition, but non-photosynthetic vegetation (NPV) remains difficult to map because dry or senescent vegetation, litter, woody debris, and standing dead material can overlap spectrally with photosynthetic vegetation (PV) and bare ground (BE), especially where shadows, exposed bare earth surfaces, and mixed vegetation-soil [...]
Resolving microscale surface temperature variability during a heatwave using a dense sensor network
Published: 2026-06-29
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Meteorology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
High-resolution observations of near-surface temperature variability are essential for understanding heat exposure during extreme weather events, yet are rarely available from dense, regularly spaced in situ measurement grids, with most existing observations derived from unevenly distributed sensor networks. Here, we analyse temperature measurements derived from a dense network of over 3,000 [...]
SegFormer and SegFormer-UNet for anthropogenic geomorphic feature extraction from land surface parameters
Published: 2026-06-27
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Geology, Geomorphology, Remote Sensing
Accurate, scalable mapping of anthropogenic geomorphic features from high spatial resolution terrain data remains challenging. While convolutional neural networks (CNNs) excel at characterizing local texture and patterns, their limited receptive fields may fail to capture broader spatial context. Transformer-based architectures, such as SegFormer, support stronger long-range dependency modelling, [...]
Remote sensing of ammonia point sources at high spatial resolution with satellite-based imaging spectrometers
Published: 2026-06-23
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Environmental Monitoring
Ammonia (NH3) emissions play a key role in air pollution and the disruption of the nitrogen cycle. Global emissions of ammonia are expected to increase in the future, making their monitoring essential to better understand their impacts and to support effective environmental policies. Recent studies have demonstrated the potential of satellite imaging spectrometers operating in the shortwave [...]
Performance validation of the GHGSat Methane Constellation via controlled releases
Published: 2026-06-20
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Environmental Monitoring
Satellite remote sensing has become an important tool for detecting, quantifying, and attributing methane emissions, yet a rigorous, condition-dependent characterization of point-source imager performance has not previously been established, despite being essential to support its use in regulatory and voluntary reporting frameworks. We present a comprehensive performance assessment of the GHGSat [...]
Novel Source Apportionment Methodologies for Secondary PM2.5 during Extreme Wintertime Meteorological Conditions in the Western U.S.
Published: 2026-06-14
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Traditional receptor-oriented source apportionment methods, such as positive matrix factorization and chemical mass balance, rely on vector-component analyses of robust observational records or pre-determined source fingerprints, respectively. These methods may struggle to resolve sources that are similar in composition due to source fingerprint collinearity. It is important to isolate [...]
Spatially Distributed Land-Use Efficiency Assessment under SDG Indicator 11.3.1: The Case of Greater Manila Area, Philippines
Published: 2026-06-06
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Sustainability
Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Indicator 11.3.1 assesses urban land-use efficiency (LUE) through the relationship between land consumption rate (LCR) and population growth rate (PGR), commonly expressed as LCRPGR. However, city-level implementation produces a single value that can mask where efficient or inefficient urban development occurs. This study develops and demonstrates a spatially [...]
Two decades of kilometer-scale daily PM2.5 from satellite observations and machine learning reveal geographically diverging exposure in Ghana
Published: 2026-06-05
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Atmospheric Sciences, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Public Health, Environmental Sciences, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Earth Sciences, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science
Exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) is a major contributor to global burden of disease, yet air quality data remain sparse in many low- and middle-income countries, limiting nationwide monitoring and effective policy development. We address this gap by developing a high-resolution gridded (1 km × 1 km) dataset for daily surface PM2.5 concentrations in Ghana from 2005 to 2025 by training [...]
Direct mapping of plantation forest aboveground biomass change with deep learning and SAR-optical fusion
Published: 2026-06-03
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation
Accurately tracking changes in forest aboveground biomass (ΔAGB) is necessary for understanding global carbon dynamics. Traditional approaches estimate ΔAGB indirectly by differencing two independent biomass predictions, compounding uncertainty and reducing accuracy. Here, we develop a Mixture-of-Experts (MOE) machine learning framework that uses multi-sensor fusion of Sentinel-1 C-band SAR, [...]
Rapid quantification of fluorescent micro- and nanoplastics (≤2 μm) in soil
Published: 2026-05-26
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Life Sciences, Soil Science
Micro- and nanoplastics (MNP) pose an emerging threat to soil ecosystems, with particular concern for small MNP (≤10 µm). Although small fluorescent MNP are widely used to track MNP distribution and transport in aquatic environments and organisms, analyses of small fluorescent MNP in soil remain qualitative. Here, we present the first direct quantification approach for MNP ≤2 μm in soil using [...]
Agricultural drought monitoring with Sentinel-1 Cross-Ratio in heterogeneous tropical agriculture: a Mozambique case study
Published: 2026-05-23
Subjects: Agriculture, Environmental Monitoring
Agricultural drought monitoring is essential for food security in tropical regions where rain-fed agriculture predominates. Operational early warning systems rely primarily on optical vegetation indices, but cloud cover limits their usability during critical growing periods. SAR satellites can observe through clouds, yet their adoption in agricultural drought monitoring remains limited. This [...]
Deforestation Edge Effects on Soil Moisture Persistence in the Amazon Basin: Observational Evidence for Lateral Hydrological Degradation and Minimum Viable Restoration Scales
Published: 2026-05-22
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Forest Sciences, Hydrology
Deforestation in the Amazon basin degrades not only the cleared land but also the hydrological function of adjacent intact forest. Here we combine 10 years of SMAP Level 4 root-zone soil moisture (9 km, 2015 to 2024) with Hansen Global Forest Change data (30 m) to quantify how proximity to deforestation edges affects soil moisture persistence in intact forest across the Amazon basin. We classify [...]