Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Environmental Studies
Governing the cryosphere beyond political timeframes
Published: 2025-11-26
Subjects: Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Glaciology, Nature and Society Relations, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Sustainability
Cryospheric systems are nearing irreversible thresholds, yet political processes remain misaligned with the long timescales of ice loss. Using COP30 as context, we argue that cryosphere science must inform governance capable of linking near-term decisions with long-term stability in a rapidly changing world.
Paying for Drawdown: the Value of Commitment on the Cost of Ending Global Warming
Published: 2025-11-13
Subjects: Environmental Studies
This paper develops a mechanism to pay for drawing down excess atmospheric carbon dioxide while avoiding third party payments. Assuming this mechanism, the paper investigates the costs of reversing global warming under different levels of commitment. The costs are based on simulated auctions for emissions and carbon removal to reach a climate goal by a particular date. The paper describes a [...]
It’s Not Just Risk—It’s Responsibility: Changing Drivers of Home Flood Protection
Published: 2025-11-05
Subjects: Environmental Studies
Private household adaptation is a critical yet underutilised element of flood resilience. Property-level measures might reduce up to 80\% of damage if adopted in a timely manner. However, socio-behavioural factors serve as constraints to adaptation. Among them, a lack of risk awareness is considered a primary barrier. Empirical research typically relies on a single snapshot of data, implicitly [...]
Why are farmers in South India shifting from conventional ‘Green Revolution’ agriculture to natural farming? A mixed-methods study
Published: 2025-11-04
Subjects: Environmental Studies
Introduction: The Green Revolution contributed to significant increases in crop production and yield in India. However, it also resulted in negative social and environmental consequences. In response, alternative farming practices have emerged which are based on agroecological principles, such as natural farming. In the recent years government policies at state and national level are also [...]
Nature’s role in national security
Published: 2025-10-31
Subjects: Aquaculture and Fisheries Life Sciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Studies, Marine Biology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy
The ability of a nation to protect its citizens, institutions, and interests from domestic and foreign threats is one of the foundational responsibilities of any government. However, the ability of sovereign nations to ensure national security for their citizens and institutions has been increasingly challenged by various forms of anthropogenic global change. While the link between climate change [...]
Blue Nitrogen: Global Rates and Economic Importance
Published: 2025-10-26
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Life Sciences
Nitrogen pollution drives widespread coastal ecosystem collapse. In this paper, we argue that mangrove forests represent an undervalued natural mitigation solution for nitrogen pollution. By performing a comprehensive meta-analysis, we reveal that mangroves remove 870 Gg N annually, which represents an economic value reaching $8.7 billion via nitrogen credit-based valuation. This value is more [...]
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 [...]
Contrasting patterns of deforestation and reforestation in India’s tropical dry woodlands
Published: 2025-10-07
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Remote Sensing, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Tropical dry woodlands are key ecosystems for global biodiversity, carbon storage, and forest-based livelihoods in some of the poorest regions of the world. Many of these woodlands have been historically converted and degraded, and while recovery occurs in some areas, the pressure on remaining tropical dry woodlands remains high. Despite this, our understanding of spatial patterns of tropical dry [...]
From Complex SDG Systems to Network Models: an Ontology-Based Eight-Step Framework
Published: 2025-10-01
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Studies, Sustainability
With only 18% of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on track for 2030, systems-based approaches to understanding their interdependencies are essential. Network science can reveal leverage points and guide prioritisation, yet it is often applied without sufficient domain integration, obscuring rather than clarifying sustainability dynamics. We present an eight-step framework for evaluating [...]
Coupling local perspectives with remotely sensed data to better understand small-scale tropical forest changes
Published: 2025-09-30
Subjects: Environmental Studies
Forests are essential for climate, biodiversity and society. Conserving or increasing forest cover is the focus of many national and international policies. Yet implementing such policies at local levels remains a massive challenge, in part due to contrasting perceptions of small-scale forest cover changes and their effects on livelihoods. In this study, we couple remotely sensed forest cover [...]
ClimActor 2.0: A spatialized database of subnational climate pledges and emissions data
Published: 2025-09-30
Subjects: Environmental Studies
ClimActor 2.0 is an open, spatialized database that compiles climate targets, action plans, and self-reported emission inventories from subnational governments, including cities, municipalities, states and regions, worldwide. The dataset provides standardized administrative boundaries for each entity, enabling direct linkage to geospatial data such as population, GDP, land cover, and other [...]
Impact of Land Use and Land Cover Changes on Ecosystem Services: A Multi-Module InVEST-LCM Analysis
Published: 2025-09-23
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Hydraulic Engineering, Nature and Society Relations, Remote Sensing
Land use and land cover (LULC) dynamics influence ecological processes and the provision of essential ecosystem services (ESs). So, understanding how LULC changes influence ESs is critical for sustainable land management and conservation planning, especially in rapidly urbanizing watersheds. Despite studies examining individual ecosystem services, there remains a notable research gap in [...]
Hydrology-Based Coastal Risk Assessment in Charleston, South Carolina: Sea-Level Rise, Land Subsidence, Nuisance Flooding, and the Overlooked Role of Groundwater Attenuation
Published: 2025-08-28
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Studies, Hydrology, Water Resource Management
Charleston, South Carolina is among the most flood-exposed cities on the United States Atlantic coast. Tide-gauge records show mean sea level rising at 3.51 mm per year since 1921, while InSAR analyses identify localized subsidence exceeding 4 mm per year, producing effective relative rise of 7 to 8 mm per year. This acceleration explains the increase in nuisance flooding from fewer than 5 days [...]
Designing nature-building communities
Published: 2025-08-27
Subjects: Environmental Studies
Urban renaturing efforts increasingly emphasize the role of collaborative governance in managing nature-based solutions (NbS). However, existing frameworks often prioritize institutional perspectives and top-down participation, overlooking the early-stage design needs of grassroots initiatives. This study introduces the concept of Nature-Building Communities (NbCs)—voluntary, community-driven [...]
Methodological Concerns Regarding RSPO Certification and Plantation Efficiency in Malaysia. A commentary on "Sustainable Palm Oil Certification Inadvertently Affects Production Efficiency in Malaysia" by Zachlod et al. (2025).
Published: 2025-08-21
Subjects: Agriculture, Environmental Studies, Sustainability
This commentary is in response to the recent article by Zachlod et al. (2025), Sustainable palm oil certification inadvertently affects production efficiency in Malaysia published in Communications Earth & Environment, 6(1), 200. https://doi.org/10.1038/s43247-025-02150-2. It concludes that Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certification leads to reduced plantation efficiency in [...]