Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Environmental Monitoring
SeisMIC - an Open Source Python Toolset to Compute Velocity Changes from Ambient Seismic Noise
Published: 2023-09-01
Subjects: Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
We present SeisMIC, a fast, versatile, and adaptable open-source software to estimate seismic velocity changes from ambient seismic noise. SeisMIC includes a broad set of tools and functions to facilitate end-to-end processing of ambient noise data, from data retrieval and raw data analysis via spectrogram computation, over waveform coherence analysis, to post-processing of the final velocity [...]
A Contemporary Systematic Review of Cyberinfrastructure Systems and Applications for Flood and Drought Data Analytics and Communication
Published: 2023-08-18
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Hydrology
Hydrometeorological disasters, including floods and droughts, have intensified in both frequency and severity in recent years. This trend underscores the critical role of timely monitoring, accurate forecasting, and effective warning systems in facilitating proactive responses. Today's information systems offer a vast and intricate mesh of data, encompassing satellite imagery, meteorological [...]
Ecosystem restoration can lead to carbon recovery in semi-arid savanna grasslands in India
Published: 2023-08-10
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Natural Resources and Conservation, Other Ecology and Evolutionary Biology
Semi-arid savanna grasslands (SG) in India deliver enormous benefits to people and nature but are currently undergoing large-scale degradation. Soil carbon stocks in degraded SGs vary in response to a host of anthropogenic driving factors including agricultural expansion and industrial development. Although there is increasing support for restoring grasslands by planting native grass species, its [...]
A deep learning approach for deriving winter wheat phenology from optical and SAR time series at field level
Published: 2023-07-13
Subjects: Agricultural Science, Agriculture, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Environmental Monitoring
Information on crop phenology is essential when aiming to better understand the impacts of climate and climate change, management practices, and environmental conditions on agricultural production. Today’s novel optical and radar satellite data with increasing spatial and temporal resolution provide great opportunities to provide such information. However, so far, we largely lack methods that [...]
An Artificial Neural Network to Estimate the Foliar and Ground Cover Input Variables of the Rangeland Hydrology and Erosion Model
Published: 2023-07-12
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Environmental Monitoring, Hydrology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Soil Science
Models like the Rangeland Hydrology and Erosion Model (RHEM) are useful for estimating soil erosion, however, they rely on input parameters that are sometimes difficult or expensive to measure. Specifically, RHEM requires information about foliar and ground cover fractions that generally must be measured in situ, which makes it difficult to use models like RHEM to produce erosion or soil risk [...]
Technological Maturity of Aircraft-Based Methane Sensing for Greenhouse Gas Mitigation
Published: 2023-06-22
Subjects: Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Oil, Gas, and Energy
Methane is a major contributor to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Identifying large sources of methane, particularly from the oil and gas sector, will be essential for mitigating climate change. Aircraft-based methane sensing platforms can rapidly detect and quantify methane point-source emissions across large geographic regions, playing an increasingly important role in industrial [...]
A framework for the estimation of uncertainties and spectral error correlation in Sentinel-2 Level-2A data products
Published: 2023-06-16
Subjects: Engineering, Environmental Monitoring
The Copernicus Sentinel-2 (S2) satellite mission acquires high spatial resolution optical imagery over land and coastal areas. Delivering uncertainty estimates and spectral error correlation alongside S2 data products facilitates the constrain of retrieval algorithms, propagates further downstream the retrieval uncertainty, and fifinally makes informed decisions to end-users. This study [...]
Is Snow Drought a Messenger for the Upcoming Severe Drought Period? A Case Study in the Upper Mississippi River Basin
Published: 2023-06-03
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Water Resource Management
The exacerbation of floods and the extension of droughts, attributed to climate change and other human-induced factors, are posing a substantial risk to communities by causing water scarcity and insecurity. The significance of safeguarding water resources and managing them is increasingly gaining prominence. Snow is an efficient source of water for recharging groundwater compared to rainfall. [...]
Enhancing Flood Risk Assessment Through Machine Learning and Open Data
Published: 2023-06-02
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring
Urban flooding causes billions of dollars in damages annually, with severe flood events becoming more frequent and destructive as our climate changes. While extreme weather is a primary driver of flooding, its consequences depend on the interconnectedness of urban systems - referred to as the Urban Multiplex, which includes the power grid, transportation network, natural surface water and [...]
Limitations in the Landsat satellite archive bias SDG monitoring
Published: 2023-05-19
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Geographic Information Sciences, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing, Sustainability
Satellite remote sensing is vital for monitoring, research, and policy addressing sustainability challenges from climate and ecosystem changes to food and water security. Here, Landsat satellite data play a crucial role, thanks to their unique global, long-term, and high-resolution coverage. Yet, gaps and quality limitations in the Landsat data archive may propagate into derived remote-sensing [...]
Evaluating the spatial patterns of NOx emissions in polluted areas with TROPOMI NO2
Published: 2023-05-18
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Monitoring
Satellite datasets are increasingly used to evaluate NOx emissions inventories. Such studies often require the use of a chemical transport model or a complex statistical framework to account for meteorological factors that can complicate the comparison. Here, we apply a novel method to compare inventory-based emissions directly to Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) NO2 data without a [...]
Single-Blind Detection, Localization, and Quantification of Methane Emissions Using Continuous Path-Integrated Column Measurements
Published: 2023-04-13
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Oil, Gas, and Energy
Path-integrated column measurements with a laser absorption-based measurement system have been used to detect, locate, and quantify methane emissions from a series of single-blind controlled releases with no prior knowledge of timing, locations, or release rates. System performance was evaluated against metrics defined in the Continuous Monitoring Protocol established by the Colorado State [...]
A high-resolution temporal framework to understand the reach-scale controls on wood budgeting
Published: 2023-04-07
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Geomorphology, Hydrology, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing
Large active channels usually store more wood than channels with a narrow flow because of the availability of large unvegetated bars for wood deposition and inner functioning that usually supplies more wood through channel shifting. However, the dynamics of the wood supply (wood input, output, or stability) can vary substantially over time and the drivers are largely unknown. To explore them, we [...]
High-resolution methane mapping with the EnMAP satellite imaging spectroscopy mission
Published: 2023-04-05
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Environmental Monitoring
Methane mitigation from anthropogenic sources such as fossil fuels and waste management has been found as one of the most promising strategies to curb global warming in the near future. Satellite-based imaging spectrometers have demonstrated to be well-suited to detect and quantify these emissions at high spatial resolution. These instruments produce so-called hyperspectral data cubes of the [...]
From source to sea: Floating macroplastic transport along the Rhine river
Published: 2023-03-13
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Fresh Water Studies, Other Environmental Sciences
Rivers are pathways and storage zones for plastic pollution. Land-based plastic waste enters river systems through anthropogenic and hydrometeorological processes, after which they are transported and retained. Only a fraction is assumed to make it into the ocean. Understanding and quantifying river plastic transport is important to optimize prevention and reduction strategies, and to evaluate [...]