Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Environmental Monitoring
A terrain-aware approach for image-based urban flood monitoring
Published: 2026-03-12
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Water Resource Management
Urban nuisance flooding is widespread, yet quantitative observations of its magnitude and spatial variability remain limited. Most image-based approaches provide only relative measures of flooded image fraction, while quantitative methods require surveyed ground control and three-dimensional reconstruction. We introduce a terrain aware, perspective weighted framework that converts flooded image [...]
Nationwide deadwood mapping reveals rising mountain forests vulnerability
Published: 2026-03-12
Subjects: Climate, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Forest Sciences
Forest mortality is increasing globally under climate change, making detailed, large-scale monitoring essential for understanding ecosystem responses and guiding adaptive forest management. Here, we present a spatio-temporal assessment of standing deadwood in Switzerland from 2018 to 2023, derived from centimeter-scale high-resolution aerial imagery. We reveal a consistent upslope concentration [...]
Evaluating global spectral unmixing techniques using imaging spectroscopy data for retrieval of green, non-photosynthetic vegetation, and soil fractional cover
Published: 2026-03-12
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Remote Sensing, Soil Science
Global estimates of fractional cover of green vegetation (GV), non-photosynthetic vegetation (NPV), and soil provide valuable information about the Earth system. As the new generation of Earth visible-to-shortwave infrared (VSWIR) imaging spectrometers take orbit, global fractional cover data will be obtainable with new and improved spectral unmixing algorithms. Using an ASD Field Spectrometer [...]
snowman: an open-source R package for automated 30-m snow and ice cover mapping using the Landsat archive
Published: 2026-03-06
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Glaciology, Hydrology, Water Resource Management
Seasonal snow and ice cover are critical components of the cryosphere yet mapping their dynamics at ecologically relevant spatiotemporal scales remains challenging. Here I present snowman, an open-source R package and algorithm for automated mapping of snow and ice cover dynamics at 30-m resolution using Landsat satellite imagery (1982–present). The algorithm combines globally trained [...]
Assessing the medium-term risk to reef damage and rubble generation for the Great Barrier Reef
Published: 2026-03-06
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Life Sciences, Marine Biology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Oceanography, Other Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Coral reef systems live in multi-hazard environments and are exposed to a wide range of disturbance events that operate at different spatial and temporal scales. We identify seven drivers derived from hazards that have and can result in reef damage in the Great Barrier Reef (GBR): waves, winds, bottom current velocity, coral bleaching, crown-of-thorns seastar outbreaks, ship groundings, and [...]
Declining Snowpack in the Presence of Stable Precipitation May Not Negatively Impact Baseflow or Floodplain Vegetation in the Middle Fork Rock Creek Watershed, Montana, USA
Published: 2026-02-27
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Natural Resources and Conservation
In the age of snow droughts and megafires, water availability and changes in precipitation, snowpack, and baseflows are active areas of research. Headwater streams are where all large rivers begin, but their seasonal water availability is difficult to measure because they are so abundant and remote. Remote sensing can help monitor small streams semi-arid areas if there is an appropriate proxy for [...]
Sub-pixel mapping of disturbance and tree mortality dynamics from Sentinel-2 time series around the globe
Published: 2026-02-24
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Biogeochemistry, Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Elevated forest disturbances and excess tree mortality are increasingly reported worldwide. Yet existing assessments are either based on patchy terrestrial observations or on large-scale satellite products, which are limited in resolution to pixel-level, binary tree loss detection. This leaves a blind spot on fine-scale disturbances where only a few trees are declining in an otherwise intact [...]
Biochar granulation and particle size influence hydrological performance of green roof substrates
Published: 2026-02-20
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Hydrology, Materials Science and Engineering, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
Green roofs are increasingly being implemented in cities to improve stormwater management and provide additional ecosystem services. Biochar, a carbon-rich material derived from pyrolyzed biomass, has emerged as a promising substrate additive to improve hydrological performance of green roofs; however, unprocessed biochar is susceptible to erosion loss. Biochar granulation and particle size [...]
Assessing and Correcting Bias in Gridded Reference Evapotranspiration over Agricultural Lands Across the Contiguous United States
Published: 2026-02-19
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Climate, Environmental Monitoring, Geographic Information Sciences, Hydrology, Multivariate Analysis, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science, Water Resource Management
Gridded reference evapotranspiration (ETo) data are widely used for agricultural water management and remote sensing ET (RSET) models, but biases can arise in agricultural regions where coarse-resolution meteorological inputs fail to capture local microclimates. We investigated biases in the gridMET ETo product across irrigated agricultural areas of the contiguous United States (CONUS) by [...]
The Impact of Climate Change on Human Health and Pharmaceuticals
Published: 2026-02-16
Subjects: Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Public Health, Environmental Sciences, Medical Sciences, Medicine and Health Sciences, Pharmacology, Toxicology and Environmental Health, Public Health, Sustainability, Toxicology
Climate change and air pollution affect nearly every major organ system, altering both the presentation of disease and patient responses to pharmaceutical treatments. However, existing knowledge on how patients, healthcare professionals, and governments should prepare for these challenges is fragmented. Climate change contributes to premature mortality, increased morbidity, and exacerbation of [...]
A Vision for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence in Great Lakes Research and Management
Published: 2026-02-06
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Databases and Information Systems, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Fresh Water Studies, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Water Resource Management
The Laurentian Great Lakes are a vital freshwater resource and a regionally significant natural system facing complex, persistent, and compounding challenges from climate change, nutrient loading, and invasive species. The increasing availability of observational data, coupled with advances in computational power and machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) methods, presents an [...]
Hybrid Physics–AI Ecosystem Simulations Improve Biogeochemical Predictions in Temperate Shelf Seas
Published: 2026-02-03
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Biochemistry, Biogeochemistry, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Marine Biology, Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing, Oceanography, Planetary Biogeochemistry, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Biogeochemical models form a core part of marine forecasting and climate projections, yet they suffer from persistent biases in predicting key ecosystem variables, creating challenges across regional and global scales. To address this, we developed an AI-augmented three-dimensional hybrid framework that integrates machine-learning corrections directly into a process-based model’s productivity [...]
Coordinated satellite, aircraft, and ground-based observations of a large transient methane release
Published: 2026-02-01
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Oil, Gas, and Energy
We present results from a Very Large Methane Release (VLMR) experiment evaluating methane retrievals from the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellites (GOES) Advanced Baseline Imagers (ABIs) and multiple low-Earth-orbit imagers with high point-source detection limits. The experiment coordinated observations of a U.S. gas pipeline blowdown with nine satellites, two aircraft, and a [...]
Advancing continuous in-situ quantification of microbial contamination in environmental waters using tryptophan-like fluorescence - Sensor design and validation
Published: 2026-01-23
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Environmental Monitoring
Microbial contamination of recreational and source waters poses persistent public health risks, yet conventional monitoring based on laboratory culture methods provides delayed results and limited temporal resolution. These constraints hinder timely identification of short-duration contamination events and effective management of recreation advisories. This study evaluates the performance of a [...]
A Benchmark Dataset of Agricultural Weather Stations over the Contiguous United States for Evapotranspiration Applications
Published: 2026-01-17
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Hydrology, Water Resource Management
Agricultural weather data are fundamental for the accurate estimate of evapotranspiration (ET), irrigation scheduling, and water-use accounting. In particular, reference ET provides a standardized atmospheric demand for water loss from a hypothetical well-watered grass (ETo) or alfalfa (ETr); however, weather stations may not adequately represent such climatic conditions. Weather data commonly [...]