Preprints
There are 7285 Preprints listed.
The role of neglected and underutilised crops in food and nutrition security under climate change: Insights from South Africa
Published: 2026-07-16
Subjects: Agriculture
Neglected and underutilised crop species (NUS) are increasingly discussed as options to enhance the resilience, diversity and nutritional quality of food systems under climate change. However, their productivity and nutritional contribution remain insufficiently quantified at larger scales, making it unclear to what extent they can contribute to food and nutrition outcomes. In South Africa, we [...]
Accessibility and its many dimensions: why ‘geographical accessibility’ alone is not enough
Published: 2026-07-16
Subjects: Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Human Geography, Other Geography
In geography, ‘accessibility’ is often used as shorthand for geographical accessibility (distance, travel time, travel cost, and related spatial measures). Yet accessibility carries different established meanings across disciplines, so geographers should name geographical accessibility explicitly when that is what is meant. This discussion paper argues that geographical accessibility is only one [...]
Observing the Non-Optically Active: An Observability Budget for Inferring Stormwater BMP Nitrogen-Removal Performance from Earth Observation
Published: 2026-07-16
Subjects: Environmental Engineering
Some regulatory load-accounting programs credit distributed stormwater best management practices (BMPs) using standardized, type-based nitrogen-removal efficiencies, yet field records show highly variable removal with at most a weak age signal. Earth observation (EO) can map aspects of a practice's physical condition, such as open-water extent and vegetation, and may provide indirect [...]
Joint falsification of gravity, magnetotelluric and surface-wave data resolves a fertile-corridor discriminator: the Al Amar suture, Arabian Shield
Published: 2026-07-16
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
A prospective mineral province is defined by deep structure that is known only from sparse geophysical data, and any one dataset permits several geological interpretations. This paper describes a prototype that converts a geologist's written tectonic history into a falsifiable prior on deep petrophysical structure and asks which measurements separate geologically distinct histories. A language [...]
Atmospheric Mineral Carbonation and the Case against Ca(OH)₂ Dispersal: A Four-Barrier Feasibility Analysis
Published: 2026-07-16
Subjects: Risk Analysis
Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies are essential for climate stabilization, yet chemical plausibility does not guarantee practical viability. The atmospheric dispersal of Ca(OH)₂ exemplifies this gap. While the carbonation reaction is permanent and chemically straightforward, its deployment faces four critical barriers: a carbon-positive production cycle, uncontrollable ecological [...]
Mechanical Association between Pressure Wave Propagation Time and Constitutive Parameter Damage in Porous Media: Theoretical Derivation and Sensitivity Analysis
Published: 2026-07-16
Subjects: Engineering Mechanics, Geology, Geophysics and Seismology, Geotechnical Engineering, Hydraulic Engineering, Hydrology, Physics, Soil Science
The propagation time of pressure waves in porous media carries critical information about the constitutive parameters of the medium. This study rigorously derives the mechanical relationship between the lag time of pressure wave and the hydraulic parameters of porous media based on the diffusion wave equation. The lag time is shown to be a direct functional of the hydraulic conductivity and [...]
Plastic more than brittle failure may govern standard propagation saw tests
Published: 2026-07-16
Subjects: Engineering
Understanding standard (1 m) propagation saw test (PST) as an invaluable tool for studying failure of snowpacks has remained elusive. Although fracture mechanics theories are commonly applied for interpreting PSTs, recently performed standard PSTs under controlled conditions of slope angle/loading suggest that such theories cannot adequately explain critical cut length measurements vs. slope [...]
S²AM-Net: Structure-semantic SAM-guided Network for Few-Shot Segmentation in Mining Areas
Published: 2026-07-16
Subjects: Geographic Information Sciences, Geography, Remote Sensing
Precise mining land-cover classification is essential for monitoring environmental degradation and ecological restoration. Few-Shot Segmentation (FSS) offers a promising solution under limited annotations, but it still faces common challenges such as ambiguous foreground features and overfitting to the small support set. Moreover, mining landscapes are characterized by highly detailed structures, [...]
An automatable method for developing preliminary stream crossing designs using lidar and hydraulic modeling in Massachusetts
Published: 2026-07-16
Subjects: Geographic Information Sciences, Hydraulic Engineering
Upgrading aging and undersized stream crossings (places where culverts and bridges intersect a stream) with replacements designed for aquatic organism passage can improve infrastructure resiliency, geomorphic stability, and maintenance costs. The goal of this work is to develop preliminary culvert designs that convey hydraulic design floods and meet the Massachusetts Stream Crossings Standards [...]
Fluvial response and recovery after the Permo-Triassic Mass Extinction revealed through quantitative paleohydrology
Published: 2026-07-16
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy
Anthropogenic climate change represents the greatest modern forcing on global river dynamics. Investigating the sensitivity of rivers to past climate in the geological record is thus crucial in understanding future landscapes in a warming world. The Sherwood Sandstone Group, UK, a unit of early-middle Triassic (c. 248-239 Ma) dryland fluvial deposits, records events during and after the [...]
Improving PM2.5 Estimation from Satellite Aerosol Optical Depth Using Boundary Layer Height and Meteorological Variables
Published: 2026-07-15
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Earth Sciences, Environmental Monitoring, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Accurate estimation of surface particulate matter (PM2.5) from satellite observations remains challenging because aerosol optical depth (AOD) represents column-integrated aerosol loading and is strongly influenced by meteorological conditions. This study investigates the relationship between satellite-derived AOD, meteorological variables, and surface PM2.5 concentrations over Mumbai, India, [...]
Erosion of Natural Cooling Infrastructure in Southeast Asian Cities: Comparative Land Surface Temperature Effects of Wetland and Paddy Loss in Phnom Penh and Can Tho
Published: 2026-07-15
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Monitoring
Rapid urbanisation across Southeast Asia is displacing two distinct forms of natural cooling infrastructure: urban water bodies and peri-urban paddy fields. The land surface temperature (LST) consequences of each have rarely been quantified using consistent, satellite-based methods, and have never been compared directly within a single study design. This study compares urban wetland loss in Phnom [...]
Glycerolipids track sinking particle sources and remineralization in two ocean basins
Published: 2026-07-15
Subjects: Biogeochemistry, Geochemistry, Oceanography
The biological carbon pump is a major control on ocean carbon storage. On long time scales, changes in the biological carbon pump modulate atmospheric CO2 concentrations and climate. Attenuation in sinking carbon fluxes is derived from a combination of remineralization by bacteria, zooplankton, and fragmentation. However, the importance of these attenuation processes varies spatially and [...]
The tidal-force theory of the Indian summer monsoon
Published: 2026-07-14
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Education, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Science and Mathematics Education
This article elaborates on the theory that both lunar and solar tractive tidal forces generate the wind flows responsible for the ISMR. Monsoon variability shows that the monsoon (ISMR) is not periodic simply on the tropical year or the Gregorian calendar. However, it was observed that the seemingly delayed monsoons of 2004 and 2026 came right on time for the rainy season on the traditional [...]
Applicability of Total Horizontal Potential-Difference Magnitude to 2D Inversion for Dipole-Dipole Array Data in Complex 3D Structures with Strong Resistivity Contrasts
Published: 2026-07-13
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Complex 3D subsurface structures with strong resistivity contrasts can cause the horizontal electric field to deviate substantially from the survey-line direction. Under such conditions, conventional 2D electrical resistivity tomography (ERT), which relies only on the inline potential-difference component, may yield incomplete inversion results. Although full 3D interpretation using the [...]