Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Environmental Studies
Coral Reefs Span Borders, So Must Solutions: A Blueprint for International Cooperation for Coral Reef Conservation in Complex Political Environments
Published: 2025-05-23
Subjects: Biodiversity, Environmental Studies, Marine Biology
Coral reefs face escalating threats from climate change, yet reducing greenhouse gas emissions alone will not ensure their survival. Local and regional conservation efforts are urgently needed to address immediate, human-induced stressors and build resilience. Although conservation often begins locally, the interconnected nature of reef systems that span borders demands transboundary management, [...]
Climate change and Vulnerability: A Comparison of Perspectives from Indian Sundarbans Delta
Published: 2025-05-02
Subjects: Environmental Studies
An understanding of how climate events influence potential harm to livelihoods may depend on perspective. When perspectives on climate-change vulnerability diverge, policies aimed at reducing vulnerability may be perceived as unjust or unproductive by intended beneficiaries. Using household-level data from an island in the Indian Sundarbans, vulnerability is assessed from three perspectives, [...]
Institutional barriers to food safety in the urban irrigated vegetable value chain in Accra, Ghana
Published: 2025-04-26
Subjects: Environmental Studies
The faecal contamination of irrigation water threatens public health. Although safe practices can mitigate hygiene and food safety risks along the urban irrigated vegetable value chain, their adoption remains limited. A behaviour framework was combined with a participatory approach to explore how institutions influence farmers’ capability, opportunity and motivation to adopt safe practices in [...]
Uncertain seafood sustainability in a manufactured crisis
Published: 2025-04-26
Subjects: Aquaculture and Fisheries Life Sciences, Environmental Studies
In 2025, the United States (U.S.) administration issued a new Executive Order (EO), Restoring American Seafood Competitiveness, intensifying efforts to deregulate the seafood sector under the guise of promoting domestic industry. Building on the 2020 EO (Promoting American Seafood Competitiveness and Economic Growth), this policy marks a significant escalation in dismantling federal regulatory [...]
Predicting Urban Heat-Related Illness Across U.S. Climate Regions and Demographics
Published: 2025-04-23
Subjects: Environmental Studies
We still know relatively little about how climate, demographics, built environment, and behaviors interact to drive hospitalizations during extreme heat events (EHEs).This study employed a discrete event system dynamics modeling approach to address two research questions about the relationship between EHEs and heat-related illnesses (HRIs): (1) How will changes in EHE frequencies, intensities, [...]
Adaptation to the climate and ecological emergency: motivational factors predict policy support and behavioural engagement
Published: 2025-04-20
Subjects: Environmental Studies
Understanding the determinants of human adaptation to the climate and ecological emergency (CEE) will be essential to any future policy design and implementation. The present study (N = 1951) investigates some of the most relevant psychosocial variables associated with environmental policy support and adaptation to the CEE: descriptive norms, negative affect, perceived self-efficacy and outcome [...]
Development and validation of MACK-12: A short multidimensional climate knowledge scale
Published: 2025-04-20
Subjects: Environmental Studies
Accurate knowledge about climate change—including its causes, consequences, and solutions—plays a significant role in shaping people's pro-climate attitudes and behaviors. This knowledge influences voting behavior, policy support, personal lifestyle choices, and community-level actions, all contributing to society's collective response to climate change. However, few validated tools exist to [...]
Topic: Mobility as Climate Change Adaptation in South Africa: Exploring the legal and policy significance of Artificial Intelligence.
Published: 2025-04-20
Subjects: Environmental Studies
The increasing reality of mobility linked to adverse impacts of climate change highlights an urgent need for nuanced and systematic research around climate mobility. While mobility is often used as a coping or adaptation strategy to escape climate impact, some mobility typifies and results in maladaptation. Protecting populations in vulnerable situations usually raises issues that test the limits [...]
Artificial Intelligence in the polycrisis: fueling or fighting flames?
Published: 2025-04-16
Subjects: Environmental Studies
Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly entangled with the polycrisis—persistent, interconnected disruptions shaping the Anthropocene. Using the Anthropocene Traps framework, we analyze 14 structural, self-reinforcing dynamics, revealing how AI both reinforces and potentially counteracts polycrisis. While AI may enhance information gathering, efficiency, and ecological research, it also [...]
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 [...]
Anthropogenic Interference in Aeolian Processes in Kerman Plain, Southeastern Iran
Published: 2025-04-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geography
Dry climate, poor vegetation and relatively smooth topography are the most important factors that brought about wind erosion processes prevail in the Kerman plain. Aeolian sediments in the Kerman plain can be divided into active and stabilized sediments. Stabilized sediments show a cross-bedding structure and coarser-grained fluvial sediments are found between layers of aeolian sediments. [...]
Catastrophic “Hyperclustering” and Recurrent Losses: Diagnosing U.S. Flood Insurance Insolvency Triggers
Published: 2025-03-28
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Environmental Studies, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Risk Analysis, Systems Engineering
Although a cornerstone of U.S. flood risk preparedness since 1968, the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), is burdened by insolvency. Despite pricing and risk assessment reforms, systemic failures persist, resulting in accumulation of billions in federal debt. This study presents an interdisciplinary framework integrating qualitative synthesis, unsupervised machine learning, and game theory [...]
Understanding Compound Climate Hazards and Exposure from a Spatial Perspective: A Case Study for the Dosso Region, Niger
Published: 2025-03-20
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science
Compound climate hazards—where extreme events co-occur— pose increasing risks to our socio-ecological systems, yet their spatial dynamics remain poorly understood. We introduce a novel metric to quantify simultaneous drought and heatwave exposure, applying it to Niger’s Dosso region over a 24-year period (2000–2023) using remote sensing and GIS-based techniques. Our analysis reveals distinct [...]
Flood type drives river-scale plastic deposition
Published: 2025-03-05
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Hydrology, Nature and Society Relations, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical and Environmental Geography, Spatial Science, Water Resource Management
Plastic pollution is considered a global environmental challenge, prompting international regulation efforts such as the UN plastic treaty to end plastic pollution. River basins, with high population densities and poor waste management, are particularly exposed to plastic pollution. Floods amplify plastic presence in rivers by mobilizing previously deposited and introduce new plastics. Yet, the [...]
Reduced Precipitation on Rapa Nui During the Decline of the Moai Culture
Published: 2025-03-04
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geography, Human Geography, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
From approximately 1200-1600 CE, Polynesian settlers on the island of Rapa Nui engaged in megalithic monument construction, crafting hundreds of Ahu platforms and Moai statues from volcanic bedrock. The decline of this tradition has intrigued archaeologists for decades. The most widely disseminated hypothesis surrounding the demise of the Ahu Moai culture suggests that the Rapanui overexploited [...]