Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Social and Behavioral Sciences
‘Scallywag Bunkers’: Geophysical Investigations of WW2 Auxiliary Unit Operational Bases (OBs) in the UK
Published: 2020-02-05
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Education, Geography, Other Earth Sciences, Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
In 1940, with the fall of France imminent, Britain prepared for invasion. After Dunkirk, with most armour and transport lost, a defence ‘stop line’ (GHQ Line) was prepared. Local Defence Volunteers (later Home Guard) were raised to buy time for the Home Army to deploy. Secret ‘Auxiliary Units’ were also formed, tasked with ‘Scallywagging’ – guerrilla activities ––in the invading army’s rear. 4-8 [...]
Risk Assessment for Scientific Data
Published: 2020-01-10
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Library and Information Science, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
This is a preprint draft of the paper that was officially published in the Data Science Journal. Please quote from the published version: http://doi.org/10.5334/dsj-2020-010. Abstract: Ongoing stewardship is required to keep data collections and archives in existence. Scientific data collections may face a range of risk factors that could hinder, constrain, or limit current or future data use. [...]
Economic incentives for raising coastal flood defenses in Europe
Published: 2020-01-09
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Extreme sea levels (ESLs) in Europe could rise by as much as one meter or more due to climate change by the end of this century. Without adaptation measures, annual damages from coastal flooding in Europe could increase sharply from €1.4 billion nowadays to at least €90 billion by 2100. While damages will be lower than those figures as countries continue to protect their coast, there has been no [...]
Coastal flooding will disproportionately impact people on river deltas
Published: 2020-01-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geography, Physical and Environmental Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Climate change is intensifying tropical cyclones, accelerating sea-level rise, and increasing coastal flooding. Coastal flooding will not affect all environments equally, and river deltas are especially vulnerable because of their low elevations, densely populated cities, and river channels that propagate coastal floods inland. Yet, we do not know how many people live on deltas and their exposure [...]
The economic implications of using a truly preindustrial climate baseline
Published: 2019-12-04
Subjects: Climate, Geography, Human Geography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
The pervasive impacts of climate change can result in scientific decisions having unforeseen societal implications. To demonstrate this, we explore the global and regional economic implications of adopting an earlier preindustrial baseline of 1400-1800 for climate policy targets instead of the commonly used early industrial period of 1850-1900 for which we have observational data. Because of [...]
Low-cost electronic sensors for environmental research: pitfalls and opportunities
Published: 2019-11-08
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Repeat observations underpin our understanding of environmental processes but financial constraints often limit scientists’ ability to deploy dense networks of conventional commercial instrumentation. Rapid growth in the Internet-Of-Things (IOT) and the maker movement is paving the way for low-cost electronic sensors to transform global environmental monitoring. Accessible and inexpensive sensor [...]
Constructing statutory energy goal compliant wind and solar PV infrastructure pathways
Published: 2019-10-31
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Geography, Meteorology, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Spatial Science
Concerns over climate change have led governments around the world to establish a range of renewable, low-carbon energy goals. Plans for meeting these targets vary widely in their ambition, specificity, and time horizons. Wind and solar electricity generation will feature prominently in future energy systems that meet these renewable, low-carbon energy goals. Implementing large-scale wind and [...]
Hydropower dependency and climate change in sub-Saharan Africa: A nexus framework and evidence-based review
Published: 2019-09-06
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, International and Area Studies, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
In sub-Saharan Africa, 160 million grid-connected electricity consumers live in countries where hydropower accounts for over 50% of total power supply. A warmer climate with more frequent and intense extremes could result in supply reliability issues. Here, (i) a robust framework to highlight the interdependencies between hydropower, water availability, and climate change is proposed, (ii) the [...]
Communicating with public audiences about the geological subsurface: thinking inside the box.
Published: 2019-08-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Community concerns over resource extraction and public anxieties about insertion of waters and waste are creating a growing societal unease about geological exploitation of the subsurface. Addressing these emergent areas of socially contested subsurface geoscience is difficult for many academic and industrial geologists, not least because translating unfamiliar concepts of the geological [...]
Convergent human and climate forcing of late-Holocene flooding in northwest England
Published: 2019-08-12
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Geography, Geomorphology, Physical and Environmental Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Concern is growing that climate change may amplify global flood risk but short hydrological data series hamper hazard assessment. Lake sediment reconstructions are capturing a fuller picture of rare, high-magnitude events but the UK has produced few lake palaeoflood records. We report the longest lake-derived flood reconstruction for the UK to date, a 1500-year record from Brotherswater, [...]
Mass-transport complexes (MTCs) document minibasin subsidence patterns and diapir evolution in the northern Gulf of Mexico
Published: 2019-08-08
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Mass-transport complexes (MTCs) dominate many salt-influenced sedimentary basins. Commonly in such settings, halokinesis is invoked as the primarily trigger for MTC emplacement. Despite being very well-imaged in seismic reflection data, we know little of how MTCs vary in terms of their sedimentological character, which may relate to their provenance, or their triggers. We use high-quality 3D [...]
Neoglacial trends in diatom dynamics from a small alpine lake in the Qinling Mountains of central China
Published: 2019-07-05
Subjects: Geography, Life Sciences, Physical and Environmental Geography, Social and Behavioral Sciences
During the latter stages of the Holocene, and prior to anthropogenic global warming, the Earth underwent a period of cooling called the neoglacial. The neoglacial was associated with declining summer insolation and changes to Earth surface albedo. Although impacts varied globally, in China the neoglacial was generally associated with cooler, more arid climate, which led to renewed permafrost [...]
Decadal land-use/land-cover and land surface temperature change in Dubai and implications on the urban heat island effect: A preliminary assessment
Published: 2019-06-05
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, International and Area Studies, Near and Middle Eastern Studies, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical and Environmental Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Remote Sensing, Social and Behavioral Sciences
The emirate of Dubai is the most populous and most developed of the seven emirates that comprise the United Arab Emirates. By the end of the 20th century, the emirate had shifted its economy from being primarily petroleum-based to a focus on tourism and financial services. The emirate’s capital, also named Dubai, has been growing at a rapid pace; the population in 1999 was 862,000 inhabitants, [...]
Well-being loss: a comprehensive metric for household disaster resilience
Published: 2019-05-17
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Studies, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Risk Analysis, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Natural disaster risk assessments typically consider environmental hazard and physical damage, neglecting to quantify how asset losses affect households’ well-being. However, for a given asset loss, a wealthy household might easily recover, while a poor household might suffer from major, long-lasting impacts. Ignoring such differential impacts can lead to inequitable interventions and exacerbate [...]
Investigation of the Likelihood of Green Infrastructure (GI) Enhancement along Linear Waterways or on Derelict Sites (DS) Using Machine Learning.
Published: 2019-05-08
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Computer Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Spatial Science
Studies evaluating potential of Green Infrastructure (GI) development using traditional Boolean logic-based multi-criteria analysis methods are not capable of predicting future GI development under dynamic urban scape. This study evaluated robust soft-computing-based methods of artificial intelligence (Artificial Neural Network, Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Interface-System) and used statistical [...]