Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Physical and Environmental Geography
Global biomass fires and infant mortality
Published: 2022-04-15
Subjects: Environmental Health and Protection, Physical and Environmental Geography, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Global outdoor biomass burning is a major contributor to air pollution, especially in low and middle-income countries. Recent years have witnessed substantial changes in the extent of biomass burning, including large declines in Africa. However, direct evidence on the contribution of biomass burning to global health outcomes remains limited. Here we use georeferenced data on more than 2 million [...]
Analyzing the uncertainty of the CORINE Land Cover time series (1990-2018) for Spain
Published: 2022-02-09
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Human Geography, Nature and Society Relations, Other Geography, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science
CORINE Land Cover is one of the most relevant Land Use Cover (LUC) databases in Europe because of its degree of detail and long time series. Although some studies have assessed the uncertainty of the database for specific years and periods, no work has been found that analyses all the available CORINE time series (1990-2018). In this study, we analyze the uncertainties of the CORINE time series [...]
A scalable framework for quantifying field-level agricultural carbon outcomes
Published: 2022-01-01
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Agriculture contributes nearly a quarter of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which is motivating interest in certain farming practices that have the potential to reduce GHG emissions or sequester carbon in soil. The related GHG emission (including N2O and CH4) and changes in soil carbon stock are defined here as “agricultural carbon outcomes”. Accurate quantification of agricultural carbon [...]
Evidences of horizontal urban heat advection in London using 6 years of data from a citizen weather station network
Published: 2021-12-05
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Meteorology, Physical and Environmental Geography
Recent advances in citizen weather station (CWS) networks, with data accessible via crowd-sourcing, provide relevant climatic information to urban scientists and decision makers. In particular, CWS can provide long-term measurements of urban heat and valuable information on spatio-temporal heterogeneity related to horizontal heat advection. In this study, we make the first compilation of a [...]
Geographically-resolved social cost of anthropogenic emissions accounting for both direct and climate-mediated effects
Published: 2021-11-17
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Environmental Sciences, Physical and Environmental Geography, Sustainability
The magnitude and distribution of physical and societal impacts from long-lived greenhouse gases are insensitive to the emission source location; the same is not true for major co-emitted short-lived pollutants like aerosols. Here we combine novel global climate model simulations with established response functions to show that identical aerosols emitted from different regions (Brazil, China, [...]
Climate change, fire return intervals and the growing risk of permanent forest loss in boreal Eurasia
Published: 2021-11-15
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science
Climate change has driven an increase in the frequency and severity of fires in Eurasian boreal forests. A growing number of field studies have linked the change in fire regime to post-fire recruitment failure and permanent forest loss. In this study we used four burnt area and two forest loss datasets to calculate the landscape-scale fire return interval (FRI) and associated risk of permanent [...]
Optimizing nature-based solutions by combining social equity, hydro-environmental performance, and economic costs through a novel Gini coefficient
Published: 2021-11-15
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Civil Engineering, Computational Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Nature and Society Relations, Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering, Physical and Environmental Geography, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Systems Engineering
A robust multi-functional framework for widespread planning of nature-based solutions (NBS) must incorporate components of social equity and hydro-environmental performance in a cost-effective manner. NBS systems address stormwater mitigation by increasing on-site infiltration and evaporation through enhanced greenspace while also improving various components of societal well-being, such as [...]
Safety and Belonging in the Field: A Checklist for Educators
Published: 2021-08-19
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Biogeochemistry, Climate, Cosmochemistry, Earth Sciences, Education, Environmental Education, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Fresh Water Studies, Geochemistry, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Geology, Geomorphology, Geophysics and Seismology, Glaciology, Higher Education, Human Geography, Hydrology, Life Sciences, Meteorology, Mineral Physics, Natural Resource Economics, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Nature and Society Relations, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Oil, Gas, and Energy, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Other Geography, Other Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Planetary Sciences, Outdoor Education, Paleobiology, Paleontology, Physical and Environmental Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Planetary Biogeochemistry, Planetary Geochemistry, Planetary Geology, Planetary Geomorphology, Planetary Geophysics and Seismology, Planetary Glaciology, Planetary Hydrology, Planetary Mineral Physics, Planetary Sciences, Planetary Sedimentology, Remote Sensing, Sedimentology, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Soil Science, Spatial Science, Speleology, Stratigraphy, Sustainability, Tectonics and Structure, Volcanology, Water Resource Management
Ensuring taught fieldwork is a positive, generative, collective, and valuable experience for all participants requires considerations beyond course content. To guarantee safety and belonging, participants’ identities (backgrounds and protected characteristics) must be considered as a part of fieldwork planning and implementation. Furthermore, getting fieldwork right is an important step in [...]
Creating a climate changed future with the sea level rise interactive- fiction game ‘Lagos2199’
Published: 2021-07-26
Subjects: Climate, Education, Environmental Education, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Instructional Media Design, International and Area Studies, Nature and Society Relations, Oceanography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Other Earth Sciences, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical and Environmental Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Science and Mathematics Education, Sustainability
Story-based futures serve an important role in climate change scenario development. Stories are particularly useful in exploring sea level rise possibilities, since we know many coastal areas are specifically vulnerable to accelerating rises in sea level. This discrete change in coastline is different from most other climate change impacts, and offers a clear basis for scientifically-informed, [...]
Knowing the whole world from the top of a mountain: from orderly systematization to complex explanatory systems
Published: 2021-06-29
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical and Environmental Geography, Systems Biology
Fast and fascinating changes in views on nature and systems occurred around 1800, for example in the works of Alexander von Humboldt. While Humboldt rarely used the word system, he searched for the pattern-forming forces of nature by gruesome experiments on animals, including himself, and then drew a map of a mountain that became the basis of biogeography. What did ‘system’ mean then and now, how [...]
Evaluating the Economic Fairways for Hydrogen Production in Australia
Published: 2021-05-20
Subjects: Chemical Engineering, Natural Resource Economics, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Physical and Environmental Geography, Power and Energy, Water Resource Management
Assessments of hydrogen project viability typically focus on evaluating specific sites for development, or providing generic cost-estimates that are independent of location. In reality, the success of hydrogen projects will be intimately linked to the availability of local energy resources, access to key infrastructure and water supplies, and the distance to export ports and energy markets. In [...]
The disaster trap: cyclones, tourism, colonial legacies, and the systemic feedbacks exacerbating disaster risk
Published: 2021-05-04
Subjects: Geography, Human Geography, Nature and Society Relations, Physical and Environmental Geography
The long, open-ended period of recovery from a disaster event is the phase of a disaster that the interdisciplinary field of disaster studies struggles to understand. In the process of rebuilding, places do not simply reset – they transform, often in ways that confound any reduction of disaster risk, instead making people and settings more vulnerable to future hazard events. Reducing disaster [...]
High resolution, annual maps of field boundaries for smallholder-dominated croplands at national scales
Published: 2021-03-12
Subjects: Agriculture, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Life Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Physical and Environmental Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science, Sustainability
Mapping the characteristics of Africa's smallholder-dominated croplands, including the sizes and numbers of fields, can provide critical insights into food security and a range of other socioeconomic and environmental concerns. However, accurately mapping these systems is difficult because there is 1) a spatial and temporal mismatch between satellite sensors and smallholder fields, and 2) a lack [...]
Linkage between the Forest Fires and the Meteorological Parameters during the current climatic regime using Spatial Clustering, Regression, and Combination Matrix Analysis
Published: 2021-02-25
Subjects: Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science
The present study has been carried out to assess the spatial behaviour of forest fire count (FFC) data and Climate Forecast System Reanalysis (CFSR) derived meteorological parameters in Uttar Pradesh to explore the linkages amongst them. Ten years (2005 to 2014) of forest fire event data and of meteorological data have been analysed using GIS overlay, ordinary least square (OLS) regression, [...]
Analysis of off-site economic costs induced by runoff and soil erosion: example of two areas in the northwestern European loess belt for the last two decades (Normandy, France)
Published: 2021-01-21
Subjects: Physical and Environmental Geography
While soil erosion and runoff physical aspects are widely addressed in the literature, few studies have focused on the economical dimension. However, it is essential to consider this dimension to conduct appropriate land use management policies. Erosion and runoff are known to result into on-site and off-site impacts. A fully exhaustive analysis of erosion and runoff economic costs may be [...]