Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Remote Sensing
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) [...]
Geospatial Modelling of Vegetation Dynamics and Carbon Sequestration Capacity in Ekiti State, Nigeria Using MODIS Data and CASA Models.
Published: 2026-03-23
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Geographic Information Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science, Sustainability
Accurate estimation of terrestrial carbon sequestration capacity is fundamental to national climate mitigation efforts and achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This study assessed vegetation dynamics and modelled Net Primary Productivity (NPP) a proxy for carbon sequestration capacity in Ekiti State, Nigeria, over the 11-year period (2014–2024). The study deployed the seasonal and [...]
Evaluating global spectral unmixing techniques using imaging spectroscopy data for retrieval of green, non-photosynthetic vegetation, and soil fractional cover
Published: 2026-03-12
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Remote Sensing, Soil Science
Global estimates of fractional cover of green vegetation (GV), non-photosynthetic vegetation (NPV), and soil provide valuable information about the Earth system. As the new generation of Earth visible-to-shortwave infrared (VSWIR) imaging spectrometers take orbit, global fractional cover data will be obtainable with new and improved spectral unmixing algorithms. Using an ASD Field Spectrometer [...]
Validation of ICESat-2 ATL13 Version 7 Water Surface Elevation on Small High-Latitude Rivers: A Case Study of the River Dee and River Don, Aberdeenshire, Scotland
Published: 2026-03-07
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Hydrology, Remote Sensing, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Spatial Science
Satellite Laser Altimetry represents an attractive opportunity to supplement the sparsely distributed in situ gauge network used to monitor rivers. The performance of satellite laser altimetry on small, high latitude streams has however been characterized as being poor. This research will be validating ICESat-2 ATL13 version 7 measured water surface elevations (WSE) for the River Dee (average [...]
Amazon deforestation footprint across global food and financial systems
Published: 2026-03-05
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 [...]
Revisiting Pyroclimographs
Published: 2026-02-25
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Education, Meteorology, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing
Wildland fire activity often demonstrates distinct seasonality. Multiple peaks of activity may occur throughout the year with varying magnitudes and durations due to climatologically conducive conditions for wildfire activity or intentional burning. However, anomalous fire environment conditions may favor out-of-season wildfires. Characterization of conditions that increase fire ignition [...]
EQ-INSAR: A Python Package for Generating Synthetic Earthquake InSAR Deformation Data
Published: 2026-02-24
Subjects: Geophysics and Seismology, Remote Sensing
EQ-INSAR is an open-source Python package for generating synthetic Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) surface deformation data from earthquake sources. The package implements the Davis (1986) point source model to compute three component ground displacement from double-couple earthquake mechanisms. Then it projects the displacement onto satellite line-of-sight (LOS) geometries to [...]
Mapping Temperature Deviation and Elderly Vulnerability using Open Source Technology: A One-Week Analysis of Manhattan, New York City
Published: 2026-02-24
Subjects: Geographic Information Sciences, Nature and Society Relations, Remote Sensing
This paper outlines a research method for collecting, analyzing, and visualizing real-time temperature data for cities using open data and open source technology. The system collects temperature data for each census tract in Manhattan three times daily via the OpenWeather API and stores observations in a PostgreSQL/PostGIS database. A one-week pilot study (November 15-22, 2025) analyzed 8,990 [...]
Assessing and Correcting Bias in Gridded Reference Evapotranspiration over Agricultural Lands Across the Contiguous United States
Published: 2026-02-19
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Climate, Environmental Monitoring, Geographic Information Sciences, Hydrology, Multivariate Analysis, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science, Water Resource Management
Gridded reference evapotranspiration (ETo) data are widely used for agricultural water management and remote sensing ET (RSET) models, but biases can arise in agricultural regions where coarse-resolution meteorological inputs fail to capture local microclimates. We investigated biases in the gridMET ETo product across irrigated agricultural areas of the contiguous United States (CONUS) by [...]
An Accessible NDVI Classification Tool for Urban and Suburban Vegetation Change Analysis
Published: 2026-01-31
Subjects: Geographic Information Sciences, Remote Sensing
This paper presents a web-based research method for studying changes in vegetation in urban and suburban contexts between 2018 and 2024. The system uses the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) to analyze imagery for each time period and classify land surface types. After classification, correlation and regression analysis are applied to explain connections between urbanization and [...]
What are the drivers of riparian vegetation recruitment and establishment in an alpine embanked river?
Published: 2026-01-09
Subjects: Geomorphology, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
1 – Rejuvenation operations are often conducted in rivers to manage vegetation encroachment and balance biodiversity benefits and flood risks. Understanding the drivers of vegetation recruitment and establishment is necessary to implement these operations but requires monitoring at spatial and temporal scales that are suited to pioneer riparian environment. 2 – Bi-yearly drone surveys were used [...]
Seasonal and Spatial Assessment of the Urban Heat Island Effect and Land Surface Temperature in Nagpur Using Landsat Remote Sensing
Published: 2025-12-24
Subjects: Remote Sensing, Spatial Science
Urban Heat Island (UHI) intensity and Land Surface Temperature (LST) variations are critical indicators of urban environmental change in rapidly growing cities. This study examines spatial and temporal UHI and LST patterns in Nagpur using Landsat 8 and 9 thermal imagery for January and May of 2023 and 2024, capturing seasonal and inter-annual variations. Supervised classification was applied to [...]
National scale sub-meter time series mangrove mapping using Landsat imagery and deep transfer learning
Published: 2025-12-15
Subjects: Geography, Remote Sensing
Current mangrove time-series products are constrained to 25 m resolution, hindering precise delineation of boundaries, small patches, and internal structures, thus compromising area estimates and ecological assessments. Key barriers are the paucity of historical high-resolution imagery and high-quality labeled samples. To this end, we developed the Sub-meter Mangrove Transfer Learning Mapping [...]
CLOSDI: A Novel Spectral Index for Cloud Shadow Detection in Sentinel-2 Imagery Using NDVI and EVI2
Published: 2025-12-12
Subjects: Remote Sensing, Spatial Science
Cloud shadows constitute a significant source of uncertainty in optical remote sensing, thereby impairing the accuracy of spectral indices, land cover classifications, and time-series analyses derived from Sentinel-2 imagery. Although the Sentinel-2 Level-2A Scene Classification Layer (SCL) offers information on cloud shadows, its efficacy is frequently hindered by high omission rates and [...]
The puzzling yet tractable diversity of global groundwater sustainability challenges
Published: 2025-12-04
Subjects: Geographic Information Sciences, Hydrology, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing, Sustainability, Water Resource Management
Global groundwater sustainability is a grand challenge that requires diverse approaches to account for local contexts. Yet, global groundwater assessments often focus solely on aggregate physical trends in storage, levels, and fluxes, overlooking the diversity of social-ecological functions provided by groundwater and their associated sustainability challenges. Here, we introduce groundwater [...]