Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Environmental Studies
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 [...]
Aligning science and practice in evaluations of cookstove carbon projects
Published: 2025-02-25
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Carbon markets are thought to be central to global climate strategies,1 but their scalability depends on the credibility of emissions reduction claims,2 a point that has recently faced scientific and public doubt.3,4 Carbon projects typically generate their own estimates of averted emissions to produce credits, a practice that introduces potential conflicts of interest and underscores the need [...]
Structuring uncertainty to improve climate change management success
Published: 2025-02-14
Subjects: Environmental Studies
There is a growing concern about the unforeseen negative consequences of climate change. In response, important scholarly efforts have produced valuable frameworks to help decisionmakers construct adaptation plans. Drawing on the success and failures of current adaptation plans, these frameworks have been developed to prevent maladaptations, meaning the unforeseen negative consequences of [...]
Models of Future Food Systems Should Address Transformation Complexity and Uncertainty
Published: 2025-02-08
Subjects: Environmental Studies
Food systems face increasing, multi-dimensional pressures that demand fully integrated assessments of environmental, social, health, nutritional, and economic dimensions to inform their transformation. Food system models traditionally designed for market-driven optimisation and economic efficiency may not be well suited to address these emerging needs, limiting their ability to support decisions [...]
Where has all the Sinter gone? From the Pink and White Terraces, the Greatest Tourist Attraction of the Southern Hemisphere
Published: 2025-02-01
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Geology, Geomorphology, Other Geography, Paleontology, Physical and Environmental Geography, Spatial Science, Stratigraphy, Volcanology
Debate continues over the silica sinter Pink and White Terraces, the greatest tourist attraction of the southern hemisphere. The 1886 Tarawera eruption may or may not have destroyed them by burial or eruption. This research compiles surviving sinter. The volume is unexpectedly tiny, which bears on the debate. A database was developed including photography. A forensic approach was taken to [...]
Hypereutrophication, Hydrogen Sulfide, and Environmental Injustices: Mechanisms and Knowledge Gaps at the Salton Sea
Published: 2025-01-16
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Studies, Physical and Environmental Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The Salton Sea, California’s largest lake, is undergoing significant environmental degradation, which has adverse health effects on nearby rural communities, who are primarily Latinx and Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indian. Over the past two decades, the lake’s water levels have steadily dropped. Water conditions in the Sea, characterized by low oxygen and high nutrient levels, favor the [...]
Classifying cumulatively disadvantaged communities in California: A quantitative comparison of environmental justice screening tools
Published: 2025-01-10
Subjects: Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Studies
Background: Government agencies at the state and federal levels have developed screening tools to classify disadvantaged communities, which are cumulatively burdened by social marginalization and environmental hazards. Status as a recognized disadvantaged community can determine access to public funding and protections associated with environmental justice policies. In California, multiple [...]
Investigating the suitability of dichotomous responses for the Water Insecurity Experience (WISE) Scales using nationally representative data from 39 countries
Published: 2025-01-10
Subjects: Environmental Studies
Background The Water Insecurity Experiences (WISE) Scales have been validated to comparably measure water insecurity globally. The scales consist of 12 items that can be administered in approximately 3 minutes. There is interest in developing more rapid WISE Scale versions, for use when time is limited. One alternative is to use a subset of 4 items, which has been validated, but has some [...]
Can neighbourhood interventions strengthen collective climate action?
Published: 2025-01-09
Subjects: Environmental Studies
This paper builds on a model of individual and collective climate action on the neighbourhood level recently presented by Klöckner et al. [1]. In this model, types of local climate action were empirically categorized (diet, travel, protest, other climate actions) and it was found that both individual and collective intentions contribute to self-reported climate actions in these categories and [...]
A Proposal to Create a Single Global Cap-and-Trade Scheme to Ensure a Ceiling on Gross CO2 Emissions below a Pre-set Allowable Carbon Budget
Published: 2025-01-02
Subjects: Environmental Studies
It is time for faithful and trustworthy world leaders to lead in establishing a “Global Cap-and-Trade regulatory framework” to change our course promptly. This framework aims to establish an institutional mechanism that ensures steadily decreasing global emission limits. The Scheme regulates upstream entities that import or produce fossil fuels, with the initiation of countries that share the [...]
Approach to setting the attribution of CO2 reductions for CCU fuels — Toward a system counting fuel selection as an emission reduction effort
Published: 2024-12-25
Subjects: Environmental Studies
As the global economy transitions towards carbon neutrality, innovative secondary energy sources are becoming increasingly pivotal. Hydrogen derived from zero-carbon power and synthetic fuels produced by bonding carbon dioxide (CO2) with hydrogen—hereafter referred to as Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU) fuels in this article—are expected to complement electricity as critical components in [...]
A Conversational Intelligent Assistant for Enhanced Operational Support in Floodplain Management with Multimodal Data
Published: 2024-12-19
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computer Sciences, Databases and Information Systems, Earth Sciences, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology, Water Resource Management
Floodplain management is crucial for mitigating flood risks and enhancing community resilience, yet floodplain managers often face significant challenges, including the complexity of data analysis, regulatory compliance, and effective communication with diverse stakeholders. This study introduces Floodplain Manager AI, an innovative artificial intelligence (AI) based virtual assistant designed to [...]