Preprints
Filtering by Subject: Remote Sensing
Beyond the SCL: threshold optimization of Cloud Probability and Cloud Score+ for cloud and shadow masking in Sentinel-2 imagery using CloudSEN12
Published: 2026-10-27
Subjects: Geographic Information Sciences, Remote Sensing
Cloud and cloud shadow contamination remains a major source of uncertainty in Sentinel-2 imagery. The native Scene Classification Layer (SCL) frequently exhibits high omission errors and offers no threshold flexibility, whereas Cloud Probability (CP) and Cloud Score+ (CS+) provide continuous, user-adjustable scores. However, no consensus exists on their optimal thresholds, and their capacity for [...]
Previously undetected disturbances are the dominant driver of carbon loss in protected Amazonian forests
Published: 2026-10-22
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Forest Management, Geography, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Remote Sensing, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Amazonian forests face increasing pressures from human-induced deforestation and degradation, compounded by natural disturbances such as droughts and windthrow events. In response, forest protection policies strengthened and formalised large protected areas and Indigenous lands, now covering 43% of the region. However, clearings and degradation in these protected areas are complex and hard to [...]
Satellite-based Assessment of Continuous and Episodic Flaring Regimes across Major Oil and Gas-producing Basins
Published: 2026-10-21
Subjects: Oil, Gas, and Energy, Remote Sensing
Gas flaring wastes valuable natural gas while emitting large amounts of harmful air pollutants; however, existing flare inventories rarely distinguish the operational behavior across various basins and fuel types, namely oil- and gas-associated flaring.This limits their value for targeted mitigation efforts. Here, we present a satellite-based classification framework for characterizing flaring [...]
Ecological compression of vegetation information in wildfire spread prediction: a case study of the 2020 Brattain Fire
Published: 2026-10-21
Subjects: Environmental Monitoring, Geographic Information Sciences, Remote Sensing
Broad fuel categories simplify mapped vegetation, but it is unclear whether the distinctions removed help predict wildfire spread. We examined whether vegetation composition improved prediction of the next observed fire-growth interval and measured the information lost by grouping fuel models. Using the 2020 Brattain Fire in Oregon, we compared baseline predictors describing fire state, terrain, [...]
Leveraging satellite data and machine learning to quantify rooftop rainwater harvesting reliability and tank requirements for schools and health care facilities in Uganda
Published: 2026-10-17
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Earth Sciences, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Geography, Hydrology, Remote Sensing, Water Resource Management
Many schools and health facilities in Uganda lack a reliable water supply, yet most have roofs that could collect rain. For 41,592 facilities (32,881 schools and 8,711 health facilities), we estimated how much water their roofs can supply, how large a tank each one needs, and how often that supply fails. Roof areas came from AI-derived building footprints (Google Open Buildings v3) and daily [...]
ConLoRA-Sat: Parameter-Efficient Synthetic Satellite Imagery Generation for Data-Scarce Humanitarian Contexts
Published: 2026-10-14
Subjects: Computer Engineering, Geographic Information Sciences, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science
Data scarcity constrains Geospatial Artificial Intelligence (GeoAI) in regions such as the Horn of Africa. One example is United Nations peacekeeping training, which needs fictitious yet geographically plausible terrain rather than identifiable real locations. This article presents ConLoRA-Sat, a framework that generates satellite imagery with controllable land cover, together with a segmentation [...]
Land Use Change, Spillovers, and Transitions: Global Trends, Prospects, and Emerging Drivers
Published: 2026-10-10
Subjects: Agriculture, Biodiversity, Environmental Studies, Forest Sciences, Geography, Human Geography, Nature and Society Relations, Other Geography, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing
In this review, we first compile data on global trends and rates of major land use changes over the recent decades, and summarize the main insights revealed by these data. We then review recent research and quantitative estimates on key land use spillover processes, i.e., leakage, indirect land use change, rebound effect and land sparing, and agglomeration economies. We then turn to the [...]
Understanding Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Urban Water Bodies via Multi-Classifier Machine Learning Approaches in Semi-Arid Ahmedabad City
Published: 2026-10-08
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Hydrology, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science, Water Resource Management
The research examines the spatiotemporal change of water bodies in Ahmedabad city in western part of India which is a rapidly urbanizing area. It integrates high-resolution remote sensing data with modern machine learning approaches. Understanding the long-term pattern is crucial to understanding and managing the water resources in the changing climate, also city experiences the low precipitation [...]
Annual 30 m leaf-on daytime land surface temperature composites across China from 2000 to 2024
Published: 2026-10-06
Subjects: Geography, Remote Sensing
Long-term, spatially detailed land surface temperature (LST) records are needed to compare thermal environments across heterogeneous landscapes, but combining fine spatial detail with nationwide coverage over decades remains challenging. We present Chinatherm30, annual 30 m leaf-on daytime LST composites across China for 2000--2024. Quality-screened Terra MODIS thermal targets were combined with [...]
Parcel-Level Deforestation Hazard Rates in the Paraguayan Chaco: A Multi-Scale Empirical Analysis of Annual Clearing Dynamics on Large Cattle Ranches
Published: 2026-10-04
Subjects: Geographic Information Sciences, Natural Resources and Conservation, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Other Environmental Sciences, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing
Cattle ranch expansion across the Paraguayan Chaco generates parcel-level clearing rates that appear inconsistent with regional deforestation statistics, raising concerns that REDD+ baselines constructed from proxy parcels overstate forest loss (a baseline over-crediting debate that turns on denominator consistency between parcel hazard and regional flows). Because parcels undergoing active [...]
Fixed-ground multisensor monitoring resolves longitudinal vegetation condition and fuel-state structure in Southern California chaparral and oak scenes
Published: 2026-10-03
Subjects: Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Forest Sciences, Geography, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Plant Sciences, Remote Sensing, Social and Behavioral Sciences, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Wildfire-relevant vegetation and fuel conditions evolve through interacting changes in vegetation condition, three-dimensional fuel structure, thermal response, and atmospheric drying, yet these dimensions are commonly monitored separately. This study evaluated repeated fixed-ground multisensor monitoring at two fixed vegetation scenes in Placerita Canyon, California. Multispectral imaging, [...]
Local ETM+ to OLI EVI Harmonisation in Tropical Forest Environments
Published: 2026-10-03
Subjects: Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Human Geography, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science
This report evaluates ETM+ to OLI EVI harmonisation in tropical forest environments us-ing 8,988,291 paired observations. Results show strong linear correspondence but substan-tial acquisition-to-acquisition variability. The empirical relationship differs markedly from the CONUS-derived framework of Roy et al. (2016), indicating that its direct application is not supported under the investigated [...]
Recent Changes in Lake Chad’s Surface Water Extent: A Remote Sensing Assessment Using Sentinel-2 Land Cover Data (2017-2025)
Published: 2026-09-24
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geographic Information Sciences, Physical and Environmental Geography, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science
Lake Chad is an endorheic freshwater lake located at the junction of four countries; Nigeria, Niger, Chad, and Cameroon in West-Central Africa. Lake Chad, once one of Africa’s largest freshwater bodies, has experienced significant hydrological fluctuations over the past decades. While long-term historical analyses highlight a severe 90% surface area contraction since the 1960s, short-term [...]
Seasonal and interannual dynamics of estuary connectivity along the California coast
Published: 2026-09-23
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Environmental Sciences, Geography, Remote Sensing
Intermittently closed estuaries are globally widespread and ecologically important, yet their mouth-state dynamics are difficult to observe simultaneously at multiple estuaries, limiting understanding of how regional forcing and local controls shape estuary-ocean connectivity. We developed a multi-year record of estuary mouth connectivity for 66 intermittently closed estuaries along the [...]
Predicting Elephant Crop-Raiding with Machine Learning to Inform Conservation Planning: A Case Study Comparing the Performance and Tradeoffs of GeoAI Algorithms in Northwestern Zimbabwe
Published: 2026-09-23
Subjects: Natural Resources and Conservation, Nature and Society Relations, Remote Sensing, Spatial Science
Human–elephant conflict (HEC) is a persistent socio-environmental challenge arising from the intersection of wildlife ecology, land use change, and development. African savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) come into conflict with humans when space and resource needs overlap. Patterns of HEC are complex and the relationships between drivers and conflict are not always linear. In northwestern [...]