Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Environmental Studies
Understanding and Assessing Demographic (In)Equity Resulting from Extreme Heat Exposure due to Lack of Tree Canopies in Norfolk, VA using Agent-Based Modeling
Published: 2023-03-31
Subjects: Biodiversity, Environmental Public Health, Environmental Studies, Human Geography, Public Health, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Statistics and Probability
Prolonged exposure to extreme heat can result in illness and death. In urban areas of dense concentrations of pavement, buildings, and other surfaces that absorb and retain heat, extreme heat conditions can arise regularly and create harmful environmental exposures for residents daily during certain parts of the year. Tree canopies provide shade and help to cool the environment, making mature [...]
Nature based Solutions for flood risks: what insights do the social representations of experts provide?
Published: 2023-03-16
Subjects: Environmental Studies
In the context of intensification of flood risks, NbS propose an interesting approach to conciliate population’s protection and biodiversity. While this recently emerging concept has been the subject of numerous studies, there is still little work on this issue in social sciences. However, it is essential to understand the social representations of NbS in order to help authorities to [...]
Examining knowledge and epistemic justice in the design of nature-based solutions for water management
Published: 2023-03-15
Subjects: Environmental Studies
Over the last decade, Nature-based Solutions (NbS) for water management have gained traction as triple-win options for climate action due to their ability to address social, economic, and environmental challenges. Recent developments in the literature of NbS have resulted in a body of work addressing questions about knowledge and justice. In line with these developments, this paper proposes the [...]
Levers for transformative nature-based adaptation initiatives in the Alps
Published: 2023-03-15
Subjects: Environmental Studies
Transformative adaptation is essential to face the unprecedented biodiversity and climate change crises. Nature-based Solutions (NbS) could accelerate the transformation of social-ecological systems to address climate change and biodiversity and Nature’s Contribution to People (NCP) loss. However, they are not widely implemented. Understanding the drivers of decision-making context that [...]
Aquifer depletion exacerbates agricultural drought losses in the US High Plains
Published: 2023-03-11
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Aquifer depletion poses a major threat to the ability of farmers, food supply chains, and rural economies globally to use groundwater as a means of adapting to climate variability and change. Empirical research has demonstrated the large differences in drought risk exposure that exist between rainfed and irrigated croplands, but previous work commonly assumes water supply for the latter is [...]
The Digital Environmental Footprint - a holistic framework of Digital Sustainability
Published: 2023-03-03
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Studies, Sustainability
This paper examines the different ways in which the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector negatively affects the environment. To capture environmental externalities beyond the common but limited carbon footprint, a novel holistic framework of digital sustainability was created - the Digital Environmental Footprint (DEF). To apply and test the DEF, the ICT sector was evaluated [...]
The Earth4All model of human wellbeing on a finite planet towards 2100
Published: 2023-03-03
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Geography
In the following pages, we give a short introduction to a new integrated global assessment model: The Earth4All model of human wellbeing on a finite planet towards the year 2100. The Earth4All (E4A) model has evolved over a fifteen-year period and represents a summary of insights we have gained during all these years (See Appendix 1 for a list of the main publications that form the foundation for [...]
Did hydroclimate conditions contribute to the political dynamics of Majapahit? A preliminary analysis
Published: 2023-02-21
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Earth Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geography, Human Geography, Nature and Society Relations, Physical and Environmental Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Majapahit was the largest Hindu-Buddhist empire that ruled the Indonesian archipelago from the late 13th to mid-16th centuries CE. Only now there is still a lot of history surrounding the Majapahit era that has yet to be revealed. One is about how environmental factors influenced the political dynamics at that time. This study tries to discuss the influence of hydroclimate regimes using the Paleo [...]
Towards robust interdisciplinary modeling of global human-environmental dynamics
Published: 2023-02-20
Subjects: Agriculture, Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Studies, Forest Sciences, Geography, Life Sciences, Nature and Society Relations
Real-world environmental problems are typically vast, urgent, and complex. Confronted with such problems, we are often tempted to act fast by pulling together little bits and pieces from different fields and simply adding these to pre-existing models and frameworks. Seldom, though, do we pause long enough to look whether and for how long those larger structures we build can support reliable [...]
Discounting the future: The effect of collective motivation on investment decisions and acceptance of policies for renewable energy
Published: 2023-02-10
Subjects: Environmental Studies
Previous research has mainly considered economic factors and personal psychological factors (e.g., personal pro-environmental attitudes) as determinants of investment behavior for renewable energies. However, less is known about how social identities, i.e. the human capacity to think and act as a member of a social group, can shape green investment behavior. Combining insights from economics and [...]
Climate and health benefits of a transition from gas to electric cooking
Published: 2023-01-26
Subjects: Environmental Public Health, Environmental Studies
Household electrification is thought to be an important part of a carbon neutral future, and could also have additional benefits to adopting households such as improved air quality. However, the effectiveness of specific electrification policies in reducing total emissions and boosting household livelihoods remains a crucial open question in both developed and developing countries. We [...]
Who are the hyper prolific authors in environmental sciences?
Published: 2023-01-01
Subjects: Environmental Studies, Library and Information Science, Research Methods in Life Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Hyper prolific scientists are individuals who produce an exceptionally large number of scientific papers, often at a rate that is much higher than their peers. While productivity is generally a positive attribute in the scientific community, hyper prolific scientists may raise concerns about the quality and impact of their research. It is important to carefully evaluate the work of hyper prolific [...]
Wildfire influence on recent US pollution trends
Published: 2022-12-16
Subjects: Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Public Health, Environmental Studies
Steady improvements in ambient air quality in the US over the past several decades have led to large public health benefits. However, recent trends in PM2.5 concentrations, a key pollutant, have stagnated or begun to reverse throughout much of the US. We quantify the contribution of wildfire smoke to these trends and find that since 2016, wildfire smoke has significantly slowed or reversed [...]
Knowledge co-production for decision-making in human-natural systems under uncertainty
Published: 2022-12-14
Subjects: Environmental Studies
Decision-making under uncertainty is important for managing human-natural systems in a changing world. A major source of uncertainty that challenges decisions is rooted in their multi-actor settings, i.e., the poorly understood societal actors with diverse values, complex relationships, and conflicting management approaches. Despite general agreement across disciplines on co-producing knowledge [...]
Systemic Vulnerabilities in Hispanic and Latinx Immigrant Communities Led to the Reliance on an Informal Warning System in the December 10–11, 2021 Tornado Outbreak
Published: 2022-12-09
Subjects: Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Social and Behavioral Sciences
On December 10–11, 2021, the deadliest December tornado outbreak on record produced a family of EF4 tornadoes that severely impacted communities in Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, and Tennessee. Although the National Weather Service anticipated the outbreak three days earlier, not all communities received life-saving information before, during, or after the disaster. To examine systemic [...]