Preprints
There are 7995 Preprints listed.
Mechanistic coupling of social and biophysical models of water management through agent typologies
Published: 2018-08-29
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Modeling the coupled social and biophysical dynamics of water resource systems is increasingly important due to expanding population, fundamental transitions in the uses of water, and changes in global and regional water cycling driven by climate change. Models that explicitly represent the coupled dynamics of biophysical and social components of water resource systems are challenging to design [...]
Effects of estuarine mudflat formation on tidal prism and large-scale morphology in experiments
Published: 2018-08-31
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Human interference in estuaries has led to increasing problems of mud, such as hyper‐turbidity with adverse ecological effects and siltation of navigation channels and harbours. To deal with this mud sustainably, it is important to understand its long‐term effects on the morphology and dynamics of estuaries. The aim of this study is to understand how mud affects the morphological evolution of [...]
Meridional atmospheric heat transport constrained by energetics and mediated by large-scale diffusion
Published: 2018-08-31
Subjects: Atmospheric Sciences, Climate, Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Meridional atmospheric heat transport (AHT) has been investigated through three broad perspectives: dynamic perspective, linking AHT to the poleward flux of moist static energy (MSE) by atmospheric motions; an energetic perspective, linking AHT to energy input to the atmosphere by top-of-atmosphere radiation and surface heat fluxes; and a diffusive perspective, representing AHT in terms [...]
Diatom evidence of 20th Century ecosystem change in Lake Baikal, Siberia
Published: 2018-08-29
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Lake Baikal has been experiencing limnological changes from recent atmospheric warming since the 1950s, with rising lake water temperatures, reduced ice cover duration and reduced lake water mixing due to stronger thermal stratification. This study uses lake sediment cores to reconstruct recent changes (c. past 20 years) in Lake Baikal’s pelagic diatom communities relative to previous 20th [...]
Diatom community responses to long-term multiple stressors at Lake Gusinoye, Siberia
Published: 2018-08-28
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Global freshwater systems are threatened by multiple anthropogenic stressors via impacts on ecological structure and function necessary to maintain their health. In order to properly manage freshwater ecosystems, we must have a better understanding of the ecological response to human‐induced stressors, especially in multiple stressor environments. When long‐term observational records are scarce [...]
A mathematical morphology approach to the identification of drought events in space and time
Published: 2018-08-30
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Water Resource Management
Drought events occur worldwide and possibly incur severe consequences. Trying to understand and characterizing drought events is of primordial importance in order to improve the preparedness for coping with future events. In this paper, drought events are characterized by exploiting their spatio-temporal nature. Operators borrowed from mathematical morphology are applied to represent drought [...]
Uncertainties of sandy shoreline change projections as sea level rises
Published: 2018-07-03
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sustainability
Sandy shorelines are constantly evolving, threatening frequently human assets such as buildings or transport infrastructures. In these environments, sea level rise will exacerbate coastal erosion to an amount which remains uncertain. Sandy shoreline change projections inherits the uncertainties of future mean sea level changes, of vertical ground motions, and of other natural and anthropogenic [...]
Climate Change and Curtailment: Evaluating Water Management Practices in the Context of Changing Runoff Regimes in a Snowmelt-Dominated Basin
Published: 2018-08-29
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Hydrology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Climate change directly affects the hydrologic cycle in mountainous watersheds, which has consequences for downstream users. Improved water projections under diverse potential climate futures are critical to improving water security and management in these watersheds. The hydrologic science researchers and water resource managers, however, often focus on different metrics of flow regimes in [...]
Creating a Model to Optimize and Evaluate the Heat-Reducing Capacity of Green Infrastructure
Published: 2018-09-11
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering, Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Environmental Public Health, Environmental Studies, Medicine and Health Sciences, Public Health, Social and Behavioral Sciences
As global warming increases temperatures worldwide, cities are experiencing even greater temperatures due to the urban heat island effect, which is the trapping of heat in “gray” urban infrastructure. Cities are combatting this with green infrastructure (GI) initiatives, such as the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) GI initiative in New York City. However, these programs are often [...]
To be or not to be: Prospects for rice self-sufficiency in China
Published: 2018-08-29
Subjects: Agronomy and Crop Sciences Life Sciences, Life Sciences, Plant Sciences
China produces 28% of global rice supply and is currently self-sufficient despite a massive rural to urban demographic transition that drives intense competition for land and water resources. At issue is whether to remain self-sufficient, which depends on the potential to raise yields on existing rice land. Here we report the first high-resolution spatial analysis of rice production potential in [...]
Earthquake Swarms and Slow Slip on a Sliver Fault in the Mexican Subduction Zone
Published: 2018-08-25
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geophysics and Seismology, Life Sciences, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The Mexican Subduction Zone is an ideal location for studying subduction processes due to the short trench-to-coast distances that bring broad portions of the seismogenic and transition zones of the plate interface inland. Using a recently generated seismicity catalog from a local network in Oaxaca, we identified 20 swarms of earthquakes (M<5) from 2006-2012. Swarms outline what appears to be [...]
Delayed Recognition of Geomorphology Papers in The Geological Society of America Bulletin
Published: 2018-07-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The Geological Society of America Bulletin was an early home for quantitative geomorphology research. Though geomorphology papers are not uniformly the highest cited papers in the Bulletin, many show ‘delayed recognition’ —they garner only few citations directly after publication, before suddenly being widely and numerously cited (sometimes decades after publication). I focus here on 1) [...]
DEM-based Geomorphological Mapping and Landforms Characterization of a Tropical Karst Environment in Southeastern Brazil
Published: 2018-08-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
This work presents a 1:10,000 geomorphological mapping of an area in southeastern Brazil, based on morphometric analysis of Digital Elevation Models (DEMs), while classical methods focus on photo interpretation. Data derived from the DEM include elevation, slope gradient, slope aspect, vertical and horizontal curvatures, amplitude, elongation and wavelength of landforms. These parameters were [...]
A calibration workflow for coastal dune models
Published: 2018-08-21
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Numerical models of coastal dune growth encode feedbacks and nonlinearities between sediment transport and plant growth. The range of processes and tunable parameters involved make model calibration an important step when using models for prediction. In this paper we outline a method to calibrate models of coastal dune formation and describe the process from end to end. The first step is [...]
A Review of Machine Learning Applications to Coastal Sediment Transport and Morphodynamics
Published: 2018-08-23
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geomorphology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
A range of computer science methods termed machine learning (ML) enables the extraction of insight and quantitative relationships from multidimensional datasets. Here, we review the use of ML on supervised regression tasks in studies of coastal morphodynamics and sediment transport. We examine aspects of ‘what’ and ‘why’, such as ‘what’ science problems ML tools have been used to address, ‘what’ [...]