Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Environmental Studies
Rethinking land take futures: A cellular automata-based spatial planning approach to model urban expansion and densification under divergent growth scenarios
Published: 2026-04-02
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Spatial Science
Land take - the conversion of greenfield land into built-up areas - poses critical challenges for sustainable urban development. Addressing this issue requires understanding the balance between outward urban expansion and inward urban densification. This study employs a Multinomial Logistic Regression-based Cellular Automata (MNL-CA) model to simulate two different future scenarios of urban [...]
Seventeen city types define distinct pathways for climate mitigation and adaptation worldwide
Published: 2026-04-01
Subjects: Computer Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geography, Planetary Sciences
Understanding that cities are main arenas of climate action, it remains unclear which cities should focus on what kind of action taking a global comparative lens. Recent contributions identified four different types of cities across seven world regions, while others specified a huge case study literature database on cities and climate change biased towards established, stagnant, and megacities, [...]
No place to hide? Regional resilience and vulnerability to global catastrophic risk
Published: 2026-03-28
Subjects: Agriculture, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Food Science, Forest Sciences, Geography, Public Health
What places on Earth are most resilient to global catastrophic risk (GCR)? We provide the first study of what locations are more resilient against the impacts of nuclear war, near-Earth objects, large-magnitude volcanic eruptions, large-scale cyberattacks, high altitude electromagnetic pulse, geomagnetic storms and pandemics. This shows there is no place on Earth which is resilient against all [...]
SIM4Action: An Interactive Platform for Social-Environmental Systems Mapping and Causal Analysis
Published: 2026-03-25
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Environmental Studies, Hydraulic Engineering, Life Sciences
SIM4Action is an open-source, browser-based platform for participatory analysis of complex socio-environmental systems through interactive causal network graphs. Existing systems mapping tools require practitioners to combine separate software for map construction, network analysis, and causal simulation; none provides an integrated workflow accessible to non-technical stakeholders. SIM4Action [...]
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) [...]
Sustaining Life on the Fault Line: Women’s Social Reproduction and Grassroots Disaster Governance in Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Published: 2026-03-20
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Human Geography, Nature and Society Relations
Mainstream disaster resilience studies overwhelmingly privilege top-down institutional frameworks, leaving the socio-economic and care-oriented contributions of women undertheorized as constitutive forces in how resilience is actually produced at the community level. This study examines how women’s everyday practices and organizational capacities shape disaster preparedness, response, and [...]
WITHDRAWN: Sustaining Life on the Fault Line: Women’s Social Reproduction and Grassroots Disaster Governance in Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Published: 2026-03-20
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Human Geography, Social and Behavioral Sciences
HIGH-RESOLUTION DIGITAL TERRAIN MODEL FOR THE ITALIAN TERRITORY
Published: 2026-03-12
Subjects: Agriculture, Civil and Environmental Engineering, Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Engineering Education, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geography, Life Sciences, Mining Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Risk Analysis, Social and Behavioral Sciences
High-resolution digital terrain models are essential for environmental planning and territorial analyses, and provide foundations for geomorphological and hydrological applications, including flood and landslide modelling and geo-hydrological hazard and risk assessments. In Italy, airborne LiDAR surveys have improved the representation of terrain morphology in the last decade, but their coverage [...]
Drought Adaptation Mapping in the Southern African Development Community: a review
Published: 2026-03-11
Subjects: Environmental Studies
Evidence on how people adapt to drought frequency and severity is expanding, yet remains fragmented and insufficiently informative for assessing progress, limits, equity, and key priorities. Previous global syntheses demonstrate that adaptation is occurring but provide limited insight into how, where, for whom, and with what risks. This scoping review addresses these gaps by mapping peer-reviewed [...]
Amazon deforestation footprint across global food and financial systems
Published: 2026-03-06
Subjects: Agriculture, Environmental Studies, Forest Management, Remote Sensing
Agriculture-driven deforestation in the Amazon remains a major threat to ecosystem stability, biodiversity, and climate regulation. Yet the role of global commodity consumption and finance in driving deforestation in the Amazon remains poorly understood and inadequately addressed. We provide the first comprehensive assessment of the Amazon deforestation footprint embedded in global supply chains [...]
Future heat-stress regimes under CMIP6: a multi-index assessment of persistence and human-relevant thermal constraints
Published: 2026-03-04
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Studies, Geography, Nature and Society Relations
Human exposure to heat stress is increasing under climate change as rising temperatures interact with atmospheric moisture to constrain thermoregulation and outdoor activity. While numerous heat-stress indices are used in climate impact studies, their joint interpretation in terms of climatic regimes, persistence, and physiological relevance remains fragmented. Here, we provide a global, [...]
Structural Transformation, Energy Intensity, and GHG Emissions in East Africa: Implications for Green Development
Published: 2026-03-03
Subjects: Environmental Studies
This paper dissected the intricate drivers of per-capita greenhouse gas emissions across East Africa, with a laser focus on the dynamics of sectoral shifts in synergy with the shockwaves of energy consumption for a time period of 1993 to 2022. The study engaged a balanced panel of five East African countries which are Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda. The balanced panel was designed by [...]
Governing Generative AI in Disaster Risk Management
Published: 2026-02-26
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Risk Analysis
The increasing frequency and severity of climate-related disasters, as well as scarcity of resources to counter them, highlight the urgent need for advanced tools in assessing and managing natural hazards. Recent developments in generative artificial intelligence offer new avenues to enhance disaster risk management. Among these advancements, large language models (LLMs) hold potential for [...]
Climate Change and Adaptive Strategies for Community Resilience: Insights from the Kamala River Basin, Nepal
Published: 2026-02-25
Subjects: Environmental Studies
Climate change poses an escalating threat to riverine communities worldwide, with flooding remaining the most pervasive and disruptive hazard across Nepal’s river basins. Despite the growing body of climate adaptation research, empirically grounded evidence on how local understanding of climate change shape adaptive practices and community resilience across heterogeneous socio-ecological and [...]
Novel methods in corporate ESG education: A case study in Singapore
Published: 2026-02-25
Subjects: Environmental Studies
The increasing importance of Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) in corporate strategy necessitates effective educational tools that can bridge the current ESG literacy gap. Yet the effectiveness of play-based ESG education activities remains. This study examines the effectiveness of play-based learning in ESG corporate education by comparing an environment-themed escape room with a [...]