Preprints
There are 7999 Preprints listed.
Global Energy Sector Methane Emissions Estimated by using Facility-Level Satellite Observations
Published: 2025-05-06
Subjects: Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Methane emissions from energy sector facilities (oil, gas, and coal) represent a significant contribution to global greenhouse gas emissions with substantial mitigation potential. We estimate global 2023 methane emissions from energy sector point-sources using the high spatial resolution GHGSat satellite constellation. GHGSat detected 8.30±0.24 Mt yr-1 of methane emissions from 3,114 attributed [...]
Potential impacts of plant pests and diseases on trees and forests in the UK
Published: 2024-12-13
Subjects: Forest Biology, Forest Management, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
Plant pests and diseases (PPDs) pose a serious threat to trees and forests globally. In the wake of the ash dieback epidemic, the UK Government instigated the UK Plant Health Risk Register (PHRR) to provide semi-quantitative estimates of invasion probability and impact on host plants for PPDs thought to pose a risk to the UK to help prioritize biosecurity activities. The PHRR currently contains [...]
Fingerprinting subduction margins using PCA profiles: A data science approach to assessing earthquake hazard
Published: 2025-01-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Statistical Methodology, Statistical Models, Tectonics and Structure
Giant earthquakes (MW ≥ 8.5) along subduction margins pose great hazards to coastal societies. While it is generally accepted that geological margin properties play a role, the controls on giant earthquake occurrence remain undetermined. Their long intermittence times and the comparatively short earthquake record obscure any correlations between margin properties and seismicity. This work [...]
Development of a dynamic true triaxial electromagnetic Hopkinson bar system
Published: 2024-12-16
Subjects: Engineering
Subsurface rock masses and rock engineering are typically subjected to multiaxial static stresses, often superimposed by multidirectional dynamic disturbances induced by seismic events, blast loading and mechanical vibrations, etc. A comprehensive understanding of the dynamic mechanical behavior and failure mechanisms of rocks under such coupled multiaxial or three-dimensional static and dynamic [...]
Interactions between buried mass-transport complexes and subsequent slope failures on a passive margin
Published: 2024-05-03
Subjects: Geology, Geomorphology, Sedimentology
Mass-transport complexes (MTCs) are common features on all continental margins, with stacked MTCs indicating repeated slope failure. This suggests MTC generation and emplacement may pre-condition a slope to fail again, although direct evidence for this is currently lacking. Determining the relationship between MTC development and slope stability is important, given its implications for [...]
Impact of data density and endmember definitions on long-term trends in ground cover fractions across European grasslands
Published: 2024-12-16
Subjects: Life Sciences
Long-term monitoring of grasslands is pivotal for ensuring continuity of many environmental services and for supporting food security and environmental modelling. Remote sensing provides an irreplaceable source of information for studying changes in grasslands. Specifically, Spectral Mixture Analysis (SMA) allows for quantification of physically meaningful ground cover fractions of grassland [...]
Evaluation of Vegetation Bias in InSAR Time Series for Agricultural Areas within the San Joaquin Valley, CA
Published: 2024-12-18
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Agricultural regions present a particularly difficult set of challenges during interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) displacement time series analyses due to the existence of abrupt transitions in land use over short spatial scales and rapid temporal changes associated with different stages of the agricultural cycle. Plant growth and soil moisture changes can introduce phase biases [...]
The effects of stress gradients on faulting and dike emplacement, with applications to Santorini and Iceland
Published: 2024-12-28
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
All tectonic rock fractures develop in response to local stresses. The stress conditions for fracture formation has been analysed theoretically and experimentally and used to explain fracture patterns and activity in the field. How the local stresses themselves are generated, and then modified through fracture development, has received less attention. Here I show how local stress fields arise [...]
Projecting Global Changes in Land Use and Ecosystem Services Using SEALS (Spatial Economic Allocation Landscape Simulator)
Published: 2024-12-18
Subjects: Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Environmental Sciences, Spatial Science, Statistical Models
Understanding how economic systems and ecosystems interact across space is crucial to ensure societal needs are met without compromising environmental quality. Spatially explicit economic models usually describe human activities and ensuing land-use dynamics at a resolution that this is too coarse (typically 10-1000 regions) to understand how these affect many biophysical processes, including [...]
Evaluating Temporal and Spatial Variations in Vegetation Coverage in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (2004-2023) Using kNDVI
Published: 2024-12-18
Subjects: Higher Education
The Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region (IMAR) is a crucial ecological zone in China, facing significant environmental challenges, particularly climate change. To better understand vegetation dynamics in this region, this study examines vegetation cover trends from 2004 to 2023 and identifies their driving factors using an innovative kernel-based Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (kNDVI) [...]
Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) for Longwall Coal Mines
Published: 2024-12-19
Subjects: Engineering
Seismic monitoring of underground longwall mines can provide valuable information for managing coal burst risks and understanding the ground response to extraction. However, the underground longwall mine environment poses major challenges for traditional in-mine microseismic sensors including the restricted use of electronics due to potentially explosive atmospheres, the need to frequently and [...]
Impact of farm size on the function of landscape-level payments for ecosystem services: An agent-based model study
Published: 2024-12-18
Subjects: Environmental Health and Protection, Environmental Sciences, Sustainability
Reducing pesticide use and restoring biodiversity are among the most pressing environmental challenges. Enhancing natural pest control ecosystem services through the integration of non-crop habitats (NCH) offers promising potential, creating a positive feedback loop by harnessing insect biodiversity to reduce pesticide reliance. Policy support is needed at the landscape level to encourage [...]
Catastrophe risk models as quantitative tools for climate change loss and damage: A demonstration for flood in Malawi, Vietnam, and the Philippines
Published: 2024-12-18
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
Climate change loss and damage is a critical part of the international climate policy framework,addressing the residual climate impacts that cannot be avoided through mitigation or adaptation,which disproportionately affect vulnerable communities with limited capacity to recover. Major gaps remain in quantifying loss and damage, including developing equitable, operational mechanisms for financing [...]
Delineating HCV forest areas using density analysis: it's not clear-cut
Published: 2024-12-18
Subjects: Natural Resources and Conservation
High conservation value (HCV) areas include natural habitats with high ecological, biological, social or cultural values. The use of spatial analysis using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to identify HCV areas is more cost-efficient and less time consuming that field surveys. GIS-based approaches can also be necessary for identifying HCV areas in heterogeneous landscapes where, e.g., HCV [...]
Cambrian foreland phosphogenesis in the Khuvsgul Basin of Mongolia
Published: 2024-12-27
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geochemistry, Geology, Sedimentology, Stratigraphy, Tectonics and Structure
Ediacaran-Cambrian phosphorite deposits in northern Mongolia have been associated with a putative increase in nutrient delivery to the global oceans that drove oxygenation and the rise of animals. However, like many phosphorites from this ~130 Myr interval, the precise age and depositional setting of these deposits remain poorly constrained. Here, we integrate new geological mapping, [...]