Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Social and Behavioral Sciences
Navigating Rising Waters: Empowering Shunganunga Creek Floodplain Communities through Protection Motivation Theory
Published: 2025-07-24
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Environmental Studies, Meteorology, Social and Behavioral Sciences
In communities like those near Topeka’s Shunganunga Creek, where flooding is a frequent and expected part of life, risk communication must adapt to meet the unique circumstances of residents. To understand how people in this floodplain perceive risk and respond to flood warnings, we interviewed 11 residents, guided by principles from Protection Motivation Theory. Participants, including long-time [...]
Multilingual Community Visualizations (MCV): A GIS Dashboard for Linguistic Research and NWS Operations
Published: 2025-07-22
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Social and Behavioral Sciences
The NWS is actively expanding its multilingual outreach to better serve the 68.8 million U.S. individuals who speak a language other than English at home. Among these, 26.3 million individuals with Limited English Proficiency (LEP) are of particular concern, as they often rely entirely on translated forecasts to make life-saving decisions. Yet identifying where these populations are concentrated [...]
Machine learning estimates for G20 subnational GHG emissions from 2000-2020 using self-reported emissions data
Published: 2025-07-22
Subjects: Social and Behavioral Sciences
Reliable, comparable greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions data at the subnational level remain scarce, despite growing expectations for cities and regions to lead on climate action. Inconsistent reporting, methodological variation, and limited coverage of self-reported inventories hinder efforts to track progress and guide mitigation opportunities. To address these challenges, we develop a machine [...]
River Network HyperGraphs and Transportation Network HyperGraphs: A Graph-Theoretic Approach for Geoscientific and Civil Applications
Published: 2025-07-03
Subjects: Applied Mathematics, Civil Engineering, Environmental Studies, Life Sciences, Mathematics, Other Life Sciences, Other Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
River Network Graphs and Transportation Network Graphs are classical models that represent river systems and transportation infrastructures as vertices and edges, respectively, and underpin applications in hydrological simulation, watershed management, shortest-path computation, and urban traffic analysis. In this paper, we extend these graph-based models into the hypergraph and superhypergraph [...]
More than a buzzword? Mapping interpretations of the 'polycrisis'
Published: 2025-07-02
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: 2025-06-05
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: 2025-03-21
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 [...]