Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Natural Resources Management and Policy
Socio-technical multi-criteria evaluation of long-term spent nuclear fuel management strategies: Supplementary method
Published: 2020-11-07
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: 2020-11-06
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: 2020-10-25
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 [...]
Transitioning Machine Learning from Theory to Practice in Natural Resources Management
Published: 2020-10-22
Subjects: Agriculture, Computer Sciences, Environmental Education, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Forest Management, Forest Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Water Resource Management
Advances in sensing and computation have accelerated at unprecedented rates and scales, in turn creating new opportunities for natural resources managers to improve adaptive and predictive management practices by coupling large environmental datasets with machine learning (ML). Yet, to date, ML models often remain inaccessible to managers working outside of academic research. To identify [...]
A continental-scale assessment of density, size, distribution, and historical trends of Australian farm dams
Published: 2020-09-02
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
Australia is the second driest continent on Earth and freshwater is, therefore, a critical policy concern. Farm dams are ubiquitous and drive AU$17.7 billion of agricultural value, yet there has never been a formal census of Australian dams. In this study, we present a continental-scale assessment on density, distribution, and historical trends of farm dams in each State and Territory of [...]
Overview of recent land cover changes in the biodiversity hotspots
Published: 2020-07-27
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability
Biodiversity hotspots are the most biologically rich, yet threatened, terrestrial regions. From 1992 to 2015, they underwent 148 Mha of land cover changes, including forest losses (56 Mha, of which 40 Mha caused by agricultural expansion), declines of shrubland or savannah (23 Mha), and urbanization (10 Mha). The three largest losses in forest areas occurred in Sundaland, Indo-Burma, and [...]
Visualizing the daily evolution and extent of snow drought
Published: 2020-07-22
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Snow droughts are commonly defined as below average snowpack at a point in time, typically 1 April in the western United States. This definition is valuable for interpreting the state of the snowpack for resource management but obscures the temporal evolution of snow drought. Borrowing from dynamical systems theory, we applied phase diagrams to visually examine the evolution of snowpack [...]
Range-based intensity normalization of ALS data over forested areas using a sensor tracking method from multiple returns
Published: 2020-07-10
Subjects: Education, Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Forest Management, Forest Sciences, Life Sciences, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Other Forestry and Forest Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Airborne laser scanning (ALS) point-clouds are used in forest inventory to map properties of the resource. In most cases, only the (x,y,z) coordinates of the point cloud are used to build predictive models of forest structure. Despite being recorded and provided by data suppliers, the intensity values associated with each point are rarely used as an input to such models because raw intensity [...]
Evaluating single and multi-date Landsat classifications of land-cover in a seasonally dry tropical forest
Published: 2020-05-29
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Accurate information on the land cover is crucial for efficient monitoring and development of environmental studies in the Brazilian Caatinga forest. It is the largest tropical seasonal forest in South America, presenting high biodiversity and is under intense anthropogenic disturbance. Caatingas land cover is heterogeneous, and rainfall is its primary phenological regulator, presenting mainly [...]
Feedback between drought and deforestation in the Amazon
Published: 2020-01-09
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability
Deforestation and drought are among the greatest environmental pressures on the Amazon rainforest, possibly destabilizing the forest-climate system. Deforestation in the Amazon reduces rainfall regionally, while this deforestation itself has been reported to be facilitated by droughts. Here we quantify the interactions between drought and deforestation spatially across the Amazon during the early [...]
Investigating the water movements around a shallow shipwreck in Big Tub Harbour of Lake Huron: implications for managing underwater shipwrecks.
Published: 2019-06-27
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The Sweepstakes in Fathom Five National Marine Park is one of Ontarios more iconic shipwrecks. Continued exposure to water currents has directly and indirectly affected the integrity of the wreck and resulted in management interventions including efforts to stabilize the wreck and control vessel activity. An extensive series of field measurements were made during the peak tourist season in the [...]
Information-theoretic Portfolio Decision Model for Optimal Flood Management
Published: 2019-06-27
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Computational Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Sciences, Geomorphology, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology, Life Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering, Other Engineering, Other Environmental Sciences, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Probability, Risk Analysis, Statistics and Probability, Sustainability, Systems Engineering, Water Resource Management
The increasing impact of flooding urges more effective flood management strategies to guarantee sustainable ecosystem development. Recent catastrophes underline the importance of avoiding local flood management, but characterizing large scale basin wide approaches for systemic flood risk management. Here we introduce an information-theoretic Portfolio Decision Model (iPDM) for the optimization of [...]
Agriculture-aquaculture transitions on the lower Ganges-Brahmaputra Delta, 1972-2017
Published: 2019-03-25
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability
Recent decades have seen a considerable increase in shrimp aquaculture in tropical and subtropical developing countries. This practice is controversial due to its potential for serious economic, food security, and environmental impacts. Of particular concern is the widespread practice of intensive aquaculture in and near mangrove ecosystems where many shrimp species spawn. However, while [...]
Opportunities for Classes of Geography in the High School: the Use of ’CORINE’ Project Data, Satellite Images and IDRISI GIS for Geovisualization
Published: 2019-02-14
Subjects: Adult and Continuing Education, Education, Educational Methods, Environmental Education, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Higher Education, Human Geography, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Nature and Society Relations, Physical and Environmental Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Remote Sensing, Science and Mathematics Education, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Spatial Science, Sustainability
Presented work illustrates application of the GIS based processing of various geographic data: satellite images and CORINE (Coordination of Information on the Environment) layers at the lessons of geography in the high schools and universities. The research illustrates GIS application for understanding, visualizing and modeling landscapes of the Earth. Practically, the work aims to demonstrate [...]
Effectiveness of the Geospatial Data Processing and Use of Statistical Information for Proper Environmental Planning and Zoning: Example of the Šumava National Park, Czech Republic
Published: 2019-01-28
Subjects: Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology, Biodiversity, Cell and Developmental Biology, Earth Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Education, Educational Methods, Environmental Education, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Forest Biology, Forest Management, Forest Sciences, Geography, Geomorphology, Life Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Other Forestry and Forest Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Soil Science, Sustainability, Wood Science and Pulp, Paper Technology
Current paper details methodology and principles of the zoning and ranging of the nature reserve area of Sumava National Park (Czech Republic) aimed at the effective planning and monitoring special nature areas.Methodology includes complex geoecological assessment of the territory, GIS application and processing of statristical data. The specific case study includes unique nature area of the [...]