Preprints
There are 8001 Preprints listed.
Maternal and neonatal vulnerability in a flood-prone area: a mixed-methods study in Agbétiko canton, Togo
Published: 2026-08-27
Subjects: Public Health
Flooding is increasingly recognised as a determinant of maternal and neonatal health in low-resource settings, yet the mechanisms by which it disrupts access to obstetric care remain poorly documented in West Africa. This mixed-methods study examined whether the flood season constitutes a period of heightened vulnerability for obstetric care access in the rural canton of Agbétiko, Togo. A [...]
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 [...]
Probabilistic assessment of tropical cyclone recovery burden across US Atlantic and Gulf Coast counties
Published: 2026-08-27
Subjects: Climate, Other Earth Sciences
Tropical cyclones cause widespread damage to housing and infrastructure, and recovery is often slow and uneven. Climate risk assessments quantify the likelihood and direct impacts of extreme events, but post-disaster recovery remains largely absent from these models, limiting our ability to assess long-term resilience. We therefore integrate simplified recovery modeling into probabilistic [...]
Structural and dynamical properties of hydrous magmatic liquids at high pressure: insights from Raman spectroscopy observations during diamond anvil cell experiments
Published: 2026-08-31
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Silicate liquids play a central role in the differentiation and internal dynamics of terrestrial planets by controlling the transport of heat and matter. One of their key properties is viscosity, which can be strongly influenced by pressure. Currently, there is not enough data to develop general models of viscosity at high pressure. Besides, data on the short and medium range order structure of [...]
A Project-based Learning Activity Involving Hybrid Intelligence in the Undergraduate Engineering Class
Published: 2026-09-02
Subjects: Climate, Higher Education, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning
Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly embedded in academic practice, creating opportunities to support learning and improve educational outcomes. We implemented a project-based learning activity in an undergraduate engineering course in which students used meteorological data to construct a temperature time series and assess local climate change at a selected location from the national [...]
Species-specific plant water status responses to land surface temperature vary across three cities with different precipitation patterns
Published: 2026-08-28
Subjects: Life Sciences
As urbanization intensifies and global climate warms, people are exposed to high urban temperatures. Mature trees can reduce human exposure to extreme heat; however, urban forests also experience hot temperatures that may affect their physiological function. To investigate how urban heat, specifically land surface temperature (LST), vapor pressure deficit (VPD), and city-level precipitation [...]
Abiotic Oxygen and the Limits of Earth Analogy in Exoplanet Biosignature Interpretation
Published: 2026-08-20
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The detection of atmospheric oxygen on a rocky exoplanet is widely regarded as a strong indicator of biological activity. This expectation derives from a single observational precedent: Earth. We argue that this extrapolation conflates two epistemologically distinct categories of knowledge — universal physical laws, which apply to any rocky planet under any conditions, and contingent terrestrial [...]
Reconstructing a 140-Year Historiography of Misinterpretation: A Forensic Reassessment of the Tarawera Eruption and the Pink and White Terraces
Published: 2026-09-19
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The eruption of Mount Tarawera on 10 June 1886 devastated the region and buried one of the Victorian world’s natural wonders, prompting widespread concern across the British Empire. The fate of the Pink and White Terraces has long been treated as settled: that both formations were destroyed. This paper re-examines that conclusion through an historiographic and spatial analysis of the [...]
One Plate to find Them, How a unique surviving photograph confirmed the Hochstetter Paradigm and located the White Terrace—Eighth Wonder of the World
Published: 2026-09-19
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
This empirical research analyses a unique vintage photographic plate that confirms the location of a lost Wonder of the World, the Pink and White Terraces. Their location has been debated since 1886 when they were buried in a volcanic eruption. The paper is a meta-analysis that develops a Parallax Effect methodology with a Skyline Gauge to consolidate and test all 1886–2024 claims to the White [...]
Assessing Challenges for U.S.-Based Polar Early Career Scientists During Science Policy Changes
Published: 2026-09-13
Subjects: Environmental Engineering, Environmental Studies, Geography, Glaciology, Hydraulic Engineering, Nature and Society Relations, Other Environmental Sciences, Social and Behavioral Sciences
Early-career researchers (ECRs) play a critical role in sustaining polar and cryosphere research in the United States. Since January 2025, changes in U.S. science policy and federal research funding have created substantial uncertainty for researchers, particularly those in the early stages of their careers. To assess the impacts of these changes, we conducted a community-driven survey of [...]
Spatiotemporal variations in trawling intensity in the German Baltic Sea Basins based on bathymetric data
Published: 2026-08-20
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Bottom trawling is the largest source of anthropogenic seafloor disturbance globally, yet spatiotemporal variations are poorly constrained in most regions due to non-reporting or low-resolution fishing effort data. To overcome this gap in knowledge, we use a U-Net convolutional neural network to segment trawl marks across approximately 1,069 square kilometers of seafloor in the German sector of [...]
Simplified heat budgets can yield misleading diagnoses of ocean temperature change
Published: 2026-08-27
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Temporal changes in upper ocean temperature (𝑇) are crucial indicators of climate variability, change, and its environmental impacts. Ocean heat budgets (OHBs) used to understand these changes are a standard tool across multiple disciplines, but the vast majority of OHBs in published research rely on approximations that are rarely documented and tested. Here, we use output from the CESM2 model to [...]
From an everyday device to professional instrumentation. A framework for Portable Geoscience Learning Infrastructure and its illustrative application to ITA ARANDU MS
Published: 2026-09-13
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology
Geoscience education depends on practices that connect classroom learning with field settings: observing, locating, measuring, recording, comparing evidence, reasoning under uncertainty, and constructing interpretations. Digital fieldwork allows some of these practices to be undertaken with mobile devices, yet digital convenience, instrumental accuracy, and learning are not equivalent. This paper [...]
FEMA Phase-Out? Catastrophic Extremes Limit Decentralization of U.S. Flood Insurance
Published: 2025-11-13
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Climate, Hydrology, Meteorology, Natural Resources Management and Policy, Risk Analysis, Sustainability, Systems Engineering
The U.S. National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) faces growing solvency and affordability challenges amid proposals to decentralize the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and shift disaster management to states. Catastrophic floods often span state boundaries, exposing multiple decentralized insurance pools simultaneously. Using a path-independent simulation framework that integrates [...]
Multi-level geothermal analysis of urban heat-in-place: a Leeds case study
Published: 2026-01-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
As cities across the UK seek to decarbonise heat and achieve net-zero targets, shallow geothermal energy presents an underutilised yet promising resource. In this study, we evaluate the geothermal potential of the upper 1,000 m of the subsurface beneath Leeds, a major urban centre underlain by Carboniferous sandstone aquifers and abandoned coal mine workings. Using geological maps and legacy [...]