Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Social and Behavioral Sciences
Erosion-induced momentum production and system acceleration govern landslide mobility
Published: 2026-10-26
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Geotechnical Engineering, Glaciology, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Risk Analysis, Sedimentology, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Erosion can fundamentally alter landslide acceleration through the produced momentum. However, existing analytical landslide velocity models do not account for the energy dissipation associated with erosion-induced system acceleration. Here, I present a novel, complete dynamical velocity model for erosive landslides that incorporates two intrinsically coupled mechanically essential processes: [...]
Previously undetected disturbances are the dominant driver of carbon loss in protected Amazonian forests
Published: 2026-10-22
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Forest Management, Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Remote Sensing, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Amazonian forests face increasing pressures from human-induced deforestation and degradation, compounded by natural disturbances such as droughts and windthrow events. In response, forest protection policies strengthened and formalised large protected areas and Indigenous lands, now covering 43% of the region. However, clearings and degradation in these protected areas are complex and hard to [...]
Fear without a dose-response: real-time crowdsourced psychometrics show a moderate earthquake’s psychological footprint is decoupled from shaking intensity in an anticipation-primed megacity
Published: 2026-10-21
Subjects: Engineering, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Fear shapes how populations respond to earthquakes, yet it is almost always measured retrospectively, once it cannot be separated from the damage. On 23 April 2025 a MW 6.2 earthquake shook Istanbul – a megacity that has anticipated a major rupture for 25 years – at ground motions below design level, causing one death and light damage. Using a validated earthquake-fear instrument delivered in [...]
Who Breathes Worse? Socio-economic Deprivation and PM2.5 in India
Published: 2026-10-13
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Geography, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Air pollution in India has intensified rapidly, alongside substantial population growth across regions with highly uneven socioeconomic and developmental conditions. Ambient fine particulate matter (PM2.5) is among the leading environmental contributors to premature mortality in India, where national average concentrations exceed the World Health Organization guideline by an order of magnitude. [...]
Fixed-ground multisensor monitoring resolves longitudinal vegetation condition and fuel-state structure in Southern California chaparral and oak scenes
Published: 2026-10-03
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Forest Sciences, Geography, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Plant Sciences, Remote Sensing, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Wildfire-relevant vegetation and fuel conditions evolve through interacting changes in vegetation condition, three-dimensional fuel structure, thermal response, and atmospheric drying, yet these dimensions are commonly monitored separately. This study evaluated repeated fixed-ground multisensor monitoring at two fixed vegetation scenes in Placerita Canyon, California. Multispectral imaging, [...]
Metal Toxin Signatures in the Smoke of Wildland–Urban Interface Fires
Published: 2026-09-30
Subjects: Medicine and Health Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Wildland–urban interface (WUI) fires burn natural and built environments simultaneously, generating smoke from vegetation, soil, buildings, vehicles, and infrastructure. Airborne metals can provide source signatures and pose inhalation hazards, yet the sources and physicochemical properties of these metals in WUI fire smoke remain poorly resolved. This uncertainty limits identification of burned [...]
Encouraging Wildfire Mitigation Action Via National Weather Service Fire Weather Products
Published: 2026-09-23
Subjects: Geography, Meteorology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical and Environmental Geography, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Sustainability
Wildfire mitigation actions intend to reduce the probability and consequences (risk) of wildfire to critical assets by protecting the life and property of the public and emergency responders during and after a wildfire event. Given mitigation activities span a continuum of timescales from minutes to years and multiple orders-of-magnitude in terms of costs, an opportunity exists to encourage [...]
The mortality burden of airborne fine mineral dust in the United States
Published: 2026-09-19
Subjects: Environmental Public Health, Environmental Studies, Public Health, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Regulation under the Clean Air Act has reduced combustion-derived fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in the United States, leaving windblown mineral dust—driven by drought, shrinking water bodies, and fallowed farmland—as a growing and largely unregulated share of what remains. Existing mortality burden estimates have had to borrow concentration–response functions from total PM2.5 and disagree [...]
Evaluating Biochar Crediting Protocols for Durable Carbon Removal
Published: 2026-09-17
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
As biochar expands as a source of carbon credits it has become increasingly clear that there are major differences among biochar protocols. This variation can make it challenging for producers to choose protocols and can make it difficult for buyers to understand the comparative value of different certified biochar credits, and in both these cases investor confidence is jeopardized. Here we [...]
Variance-ranked sound speed bases misclassify the surface duct: limits of profile RMSE as a proxy for acoustic prediction skill in the Bay of Bengal
Published: 2026-09-17
Subjects: Geography, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Remote Sensing, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Sound speed profile (SSP) estimation from surface observables is operationally mature and is evaluated almost universally by profile root-mean-square error. Using 19,934 Argo profiles from the Bay of Bengal (2005–2020), season-stratified empirical orthogonal function (EOF) bases, and BELLHOP transmission loss (TL) at 500 Hz, 1500 Hz and 3500 Hz over 24 held-out locations, we show that this metric [...]
A Formal Framework for Measuring Institutional Collapse under a Nuclear Winter Scenario
Published: 2026-09-16
Subjects: Social and Behavioral Sciences
A medium-scale regional nuclear exchange could plausibly loft ~16 Teragrams (16 * 10¹² grams, Tg) of soot into the stratosphere, sufficient to reduce conventional agricultural output past the ~30% threshold at which large-scale starvation emerges. Alternative food-production methods could restore sufficient caloric supply in the United States, but scaling them to ~70% of pre-shock capacity [...]
Inside the Extinction Envelope: A Systemic Review and Meta-Analysis of Paleoclimate Extinction Markers with Comments on the Necessary Array of Last-Threshold Interventions
Published: 2026-09-14
Subjects: Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Every element of the causal chain that produced the five largest mass extinctions of the last half-billion years is presently active in the Earth system. The rate of the modern perturbation exceeds every peer-reviewed paleoclimate reference case. A six-intervention portfolio, deployed together at wartime industrial scale beginning now, is the physically necessary and sufficient response. The [...]
Assessing Challenges for U.S.-Based Polar Early Career Scientists During Science Policy Changes
Published: 2026-09-13
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Environmental Studies, Geography, Glaciology, Hydraulic Engineering, Nature and Society Relations, Other Environmental Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Early-career researchers (ECRs) play a critical role in sustaining polar and cryosphere research in the United States. Since January 2025, changes in U.S. science policy and federal research funding have created substantial uncertainty for researchers, particularly those in the early stages of their careers. To assess the impacts of these changes, we conducted a community-driven survey of [...]
A safe and just operating space for water at municipal scale: population, agriculture and mining in Chihuahua, Mexico, to 2050
Published: 2026-09-08
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Nature and Society Relations, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
Water allocation decisions in Mexico are taken municipality by municipality, yet water scarcity is assessed at national or basin scale. We operationalize a safe and just operating space for water for each of the 67 municipalities of Chihuahua, Mexico's largest and driest mining state, with both bounds drawn from national law rather than imposed by the analyst: an ecological ceiling equal to the [...]
Beyond climate-change risk: subjective attribution, multidimensional impact appraisal, and adaptation advocacy among Swedish forestry professionals
Published: 2026-09-07
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Adaptation may depend on whether decision-makers recognise climate change, but also on whether they attribute experienced changes to climate change and how they appraise consequences across valued domains. We analysed survey data from 140 Swedish forestry professionals to examine whether stronger subjective attribution of experienced forest changes to climate change is associated with more [...]