Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Physical and Environmental Geography
Agricultural expansion and intensification in Brazil: A literature synthesis of dynamics, drivers, and implications
Published: 2026-03-24
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Human Geography, Nature and Society Relations, Other Geography, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Spatial Science
Brazil’s long-term agricultural development reflects a complex interplay between human-driven land-use change and natural ecosystems. Since the 1960s, agricultural production in Brazil has expanded rapidly, driven by global food demand and national economic growth, through two primary pathways: (1) agricultural expansion via conversion of natural vegetation, particularly forests, and (2) [...]
Geospatial Modelling of Vegetation Dynamics and Carbon Sequestration Capacity in Ekiti State, Nigeria Using MODIS Data and CASA Models.
Published: 2026-03-23
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Geographic Information Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science, Sustainability
Accurate estimation of terrestrial carbon sequestration capacity is fundamental to national climate mitigation efforts and achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This study assessed vegetation dynamics and modelled Net Primary Productivity (NPP) a proxy for carbon sequestration capacity in Ekiti State, Nigeria, over the 11-year period (2014–2024). The study deployed the seasonal and [...]
Wildfire house loss hazard mapping and fuel management scenario planning on a Tasmanian wildland-urban interface using radiant heat and firebrand exposure modelling
Published: 2026-03-02
Subjects: Forest Management, Physical and Environmental Geography, Spatial Science
Globally, wildfire disasters are increasing in frequency through a combination of urban expansion into flammable wildlands and climate change. Accordingly, the wildland urban interface (WUI) is a crucial geographic domain for disaster risk reduction. Accurate mapping of wildfire house loss hazard is a basic requirement for effective wildfire risk management. We developed a novel geographic [...]
Revisiting Pyroclimographs
Published: 2026-02-24
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Education, Meteorology, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing
Wildland fire activity often demonstrates distinct seasonality. Multiple peaks of activity may occur throughout the year with varying magnitudes and durations due to climatologically conducive conditions for wildfire activity or intentional burning. However, anomalous fire environment conditions may favor out-of-season wildfires. Characterization of conditions that increase fire ignition [...]
What are the drivers of riparian vegetation recruitment and establishment in an alpine embanked river?
Published: 2026-01-09
Subjects: Geomorphology, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
1 – Rejuvenation operations are often conducted in rivers to manage vegetation encroachment and balance biodiversity benefits and flood risks. Understanding the drivers of vegetation recruitment and establishment is necessary to implement these operations but requires monitoring at spatial and temporal scales that are suited to pioneer riparian environment. 2 – Bi-yearly drone surveys were used [...]
The puzzling yet tractable diversity of global groundwater sustainability challenges
Published: 2025-12-04
Subjects: Geographic Information Sciences, Hydrology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
Global groundwater sustainability is a grand challenge that requires diverse approaches to account for local contexts. Yet, global groundwater assessments often focus solely on aggregate physical trends in storage, levels, and fluxes, overlooking the diversity of social-ecological functions provided by groundwater and their associated sustainability challenges. Here, we introduce groundwater [...]
Past, Present and Future of the Indus Water Treaty: Implications for Transboundary Water Governance Challenges and Modernization Prospects
Published: 2025-10-30
Subjects: International and Area Studies, Physical and Environmental Geography, Water Resource Management
The Indus Water Treaty has been applauded as a successful water sharing agreement to allocate the water of Indus River system between India and Pakistan. Yet a set of diplomatic, water resources, and climatic challenges have culminated into the current state of suspension and raise questions over the future of the transboundary water governance. This paper presents a critical spatio-temporal [...]
Hazomes: Earth’s natural multi-hazard terrestrial disturbance regimes
Published: 2025-10-22
Subjects: Climate, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Other Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Planetary Sciences, Physical and Environmental Geography, Spatial Science, Sustainability
Ecosystems and societies have evolved together and are shaped by local natural hazard regimes. We introduce hazomes, an Earth classification based on multi‑hazard disturbance patterns. By combining open‑source intensity and return period data for eight hazard types, we identify thousands of distinct terrestrial disturbance regimes. Hazomes aims to deepen insight into ecosystem and societal [...]
Reconstructing Nineteenth-Century River Water Levels with Transformer-Based Computer Vision
Published: 2025-10-11
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Physical and Environmental Geography
Nineteenth-century Bavarian Danube gauge charts (1826–1894) were converted into daily water-level series referenced to gauge zero through a semi-automated workflow combining light document pre-processing, dewarping, transformer-based line extraction, pixel-to-curve calibration, and targeted human checks. A curated ground-truth sample supported benchmarking and uncertainty quantification. On three [...]
DOZER: a toy model of coastal hazard mitigation during a storm
Published: 2025-09-17
Subjects: Dynamical Systems, Geomorphology, Nature and Society Relations, Other Civil and Environmental Engineering, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical and Environmental Geography, Science and Mathematics Education, Sustainability
Motivated by observations of emergency road-maintenance crews in coastal settings, DOZER is a video game in which the player uses a bulldozer to clear sand from a beachfront road during a storm. DOZER is also a toy model in a formal sense: a heuristic tool for insight into the dynamics of real-time intervention in the physical processes of a natural hazard. Here, I introduce DOZER as both a game [...]
Tropical cyclone risk to global electricity supply
Published: 2025-09-11
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical and Environmental Geography, Power and Energy, Risk Analysis
To analyse the risks from Tropical Cyclones (TC) to electricity supply, we have combined a large ensemble of TC simulations with a spatial model of power networks and people served, for the entire TC belt globally. The model of electricity power failure, measured in terms of population disrupted, was calibrated against nighttime lights satellite imagery of historic TC events. Use of spatially [...]
High-resolution Digital Terrain Model and Land-surface Parameters of São Sebastião and Ilhabela, southeastern Brazil
Published: 2025-08-21
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Geology, Geomorphology, Nature and Society Relations, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing
Effective disaster risk management and detailed environmental studies in landslide-prone regions require high-resolution and accurate Digital Terrain Models (DTMs). This work describes the development of a 2m-resolution lidar-based DTM and an extensive set of land-surface parameters (LSPs) for the municipalities of São Sebastião and Ilhabela, southeastern Brazil. The dataset was generated from [...]
Monetary transfers are related to patterning in climate events, not just single extreme events
Published: 2025-07-25
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Studies, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing
It is well-documented that households respond to climate events with climate adaptations, risk-management strategies like livelihood diversification, migration, or remittances – sending money and goods across distances. However, the focus is largely on responses to single climate events, while suggestive evidence indicates that temporal and spatial patterns across multiple events – including [...]
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. [...]
Four-Decade Analysis of Fire Behavior in the Brazilian Caatinga Biome 1985-2023
Published: 2025-04-10
Subjects: Forest Management, Geographic Information Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing
The Caatinga, unique in northeastern Brazil, has species adapted to the semi-arid climate. Recurrent fires put its biodiversity at risk, highlighting the need for urgent measures to protect this fragile ecosystem. This study analyzed four decades of fire behavior in the Caatinga biome (1985-2023) using data from the MapBiomas Fire project and spatial analysis, revealing a worrying dynamic of [...]