Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Social and Behavioral Sciences
More than a buzzword? Mapping interpretations of the 'polycrisis'
Published: 2025-07-03
Subjects: Social and Behavioral Sciences
“Polycrisis” leapt from Davos into everyday policy talk, yet its meaning remains fluid and sometimes contradictory. To take stock, we asked fifty experts to sort key statements, and Q-method analysis revealed four distinct framings. All agree that polycrisis spills across sectors and borders and reject the view that polycrisis is a mere buzzword. They diverge, however, on how much faith to place [...]
The Stotfield silcrete (or ‘Stotfield Cherty Rock’), Moray, eastern Scotland: Characterization and discussion of an archaeologically important lithic raw material
Published: 2025-06-18
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Human Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
We describe and discuss a lithic raw material new to Scottish prehistoric research: the Stotfield silcrete or Stotfield Cherty Rock. This material was well-known to Scottish geologists, but it was only recently realized that it had been used by prehistoric people in Moray, eastern Scotland. We describe our examination of archaeological Stotfield silcrete, as well as field information relating to [...]
Spatiotemporal dynamics of floodplain patterns during the last 400 years south of Leipzig - A regional scale analysis
Published: 2025-06-06
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Geomorphology, Other Earth Sciences, Physical and Environmental Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Remote Sensing, Social and Behavioral Sciences
The Elster-Pleiße floodplain south of Leipzig has undergone significant hydromorphological changes over the past centuries, influenced by both natural processes and anthropogenic interventions. This study employs high-resolution LiDAR-based fluvial-geomorphological mapping (1x1 m resolution) and old maps analyses to reconstruct past river dynamics and identify shifts in channel morphology. [...]
Identifying and overcoming social-ecological barriers to ending plastics pollution
Published: 2025-05-27
Subjects: Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Plastics are deeply embedded in contemporary life, and their production and pollution contribute to irreversible harm across ecological and social systems. Recognized as a “novel entity” in the Planetary Boundaries framework, plastics challenge traditional governance models due to their chemical complexity and diversity, cross-sectoral impacts, and pushback from powerful political and economic [...]
Correlation Between Commuting Behavior and Air Pollution
Published: 2025-05-10
Subjects: Social and Behavioral Sciences
One of the biggest causes of air pollution in a city is the use of gasoline engined vehicles, such as cars, buses, and motorcycles, which is used every day as a commuting mode for citizens. Commuting behaviors of people can be categorized into two big factors, public transportation and private transportation. The research invested on whether or not higher usage rate of public transportation [...]
Bridging Territorial and Consumption-Based Emissions for Urban Climate Action Assessment
Published: 2025-05-09
Subjects: Social and Behavioral Sciences
Urban areas are responsible for the vast majority of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, yet their full contribution, particularly from consumption-based sources, remains inconsistently measured. To address this problem, we provide an updated and globally consistent estimate of urban contributions to both territorial and consumption-based emissions, finding that urban areas account for 87% of [...]
Establishing Deep Time: Multi-Method Dating of Archaeological and Speleological Features in the Bosnian Valley of the Pyramids
Published: 2025-05-01
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
This study presents an integrated chronological framework for the Bosnian Valley of the Pyramids using multiple scientific dating techniques. Radiocarbon dating, uranium-thorium analysis, and soil pedogenesis studies were conducted on archaeological and speleological features including the Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun, the Pyramid of the Moon, and the Ravne tunnel networks. Results suggest [...]
ANALYSING THE PLANT VARIETY PROTECTION WITH RESPECT TO FOOD SECURITY IN INDIAN CONTEXT
Published: 2025-04-16
Subjects: Education, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Ending hunger, achieving food security and sustainable agriculture is the second Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) out of seventeen SDGs of United Nations and it aims to ensure food security and nutrition to each individual globally. Plant varieties protection (PVP)and plant breeders’ rights protection agreements and laws like International Union for the Protection of New varieties of Plant [...]
A realistic climate strategy
Published: 2025-04-12
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Sustainability
The international climate strategy is failing. Current policies will act too slowly to prevent rising temperatures from crossing critical climate tipping points. IPCC assessments underestimate the non-linear risks and catastrophic costs of overshooting Paris Agreement targets. Opponents of solar geoengineering cite concerns about moral hazard and other potential risks; however, at this juncture [...]
Inequities in Indoor Exposure to Wildfire-Related PM2.5 Across the Contiguous United States
Published: 2025-04-04
Subjects: Medicine and Health Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Exposure to wildfire smoke has been recognized as a major public health concern, but existing studies have focused on outdoor air, despite the fact that most people spend the majority of their time indoors, especially during wildfires. Here, we estimated indoor wildfire-related fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentrations across 72,537 census tracts in the contiguous United States for the year [...]
Unprecedented Social-Ecological Impacts of the 2023 Extreme Drought in the Central Amazon
Published: 2025-03-22
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
While the 2023 record-breaking drought led to widespread social-ecological impacts across Amazonia, local impacts of such extreme events are rarely described in detail. Here we leverage a large interdisciplinary data collection related to social and ecological impacts in the Central Amazon. Compound hazards (reduced river water levels, lack of rainfall, high water/air temperatures, river erosion [...]
Multi-decadal analysis of major global risk assessments reveals consistent biases and low predictive capacity
Published: 2025-03-20
Subjects: Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
The World Economic Forum (WEF) Global Risk Reports (GRRs) are published annually with the aim to uncover the most pressing challenges facing the world. However, the GRR have been criticized for presenting an overly simplistic and potentially biased portrayal of interconnected global risks and crises. Despite their influence, no in-depth, interannual analysis of the GRRs has been conducted to [...]
Floods, Facts, and Fictions: Numbers and Narratives Behind Bangladesh’s 2024 Regional Floods
Published: 2025-02-27
Subjects: Engineering, Social and Behavioral Sciences
The August 2024 regional floods in Bangladesh, occurring shortly after a major political upheaval, were among the most severe in recent history, displacing millions and causing extensive damage. This paper examines both the scientific and social dimensions of this disaster by exploring the natural drivers that led to the flooding and the sociopolitical context that caused rumors to spread that [...]
Aligning science and practice in evaluations of cookstove carbon projects
Published: 2025-02-25
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Carbon markets are thought to be central to global climate strategies,1 but their scalability depends on the credibility of emissions reduction claims,2 a point that has recently faced scientific and public doubt.3,4 Carbon projects typically generate their own estimates of averted emissions to produce credits, a practice that introduces potential conflicts of interest and underscores the need [...]
Thirty Years of the Open Geospatial Consortium - History, Present, and Future
Published: 2025-02-23
Subjects: Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
For 30 years, the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) has advanced geospatial interoperability through continuous innovation. The OGC provides strategies and Standards that promote adoption, increase efficiencies, create new opportunities, and transform our relationship with the dynamic planet we inhabit. It has fostered global collaborations among companies, governments, academic institutions, and [...]