Preprints
Search for science and technology (89 results)
Irrigation-driven land subsidence on the Barind Tract, northwest Bangladesh: two-track Sentinel-1 InSAR, GNSS-tied time series and spatially cross-validated explainable machine learning
Published: 2026-11-12
Subjects: Education, Engineering
The Barind Tract of northwest Bangladesh is the country’s most intensively groundwater-irrigated region, yet its ground motion has been measured only at isolated points. We processedascendinganddescendingSentinel-1small-baseline InSAR networks for 2017–2025, referenced them to a continuous GNSS station and converted line-of-sight rates to vertical velocity. In the ascending track, co herent land [...]
Meteorological associations of hourly PM₂.₅ in Lhasa, Tibetan Plateau: antecedent weather, trend specification and out-of-sample evaluation
Published: 2026-11-03
Subjects: Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
Statistical models that relate PM₂.₅ to meteorology are widely used to separate weather from emission effects, but they are rarely evaluated out of sample in clean, high-altitude cities, and the role of their trend term is seldom examined. This study fitted penalized additive spline models to hourly city-average PM₂.₅ in Lhasa, Tibetan Plateau (about 3,650 m a.s.l.), for 2019–2024 (51,955 valid [...]
“Grand” petit-spot volcanism off the Japan Trench
Published: 2026-10-09
Subjects: Earth Sciences
Petit-spot volcanoes are a recently discovered type of small intraplate volcanoes that erupt on the outer rise of subducting plates. At petit-spot regions on the outer rise of the Japan Trench, an anomalously shallow acoustic basement reflector is widely distributed, leading to the hypothesis that it corresponds to sills or sheet-like lava flows and is associated with petit-spot magmatism. Here [...]
Drilled petit-spot basalts reveal asthenospheric mantle heterogeneity before subduction
Published: 2026-10-09
Subjects: Geochemistry, Geology
Submarine petit-spot volcanoes form where oceanic plates bend and flex before sinking into subduction zones, providing a rare opportunity to sample mantle-derived melts before subduction. Here we report results from the first scientific drilling of a sediment-buried petit-spot volcano during International Ocean Drilling Programme Expedition 502, recovering basalts from a previously inaccessible [...]
No Robust Evidence for a GDP–Methane Relationship in Africa, 1970–2024: A Multi-Specification Test Against the Environmental Kuznets Curve and STIRPAT Frameworks
Published: 2026-10-02
Subjects: Environmental Studies
The green growth hypothesis, that economic growth can be decoupled from environmental harm, is embedded in the Sustainable Development Goals and national climate strategies, yet remains contested, with recent evidence questioning whether decoupling occurs fast enough to meet climate targets. Methane policy for Africa, including the Global Methane Pledge's 22-plus African signatories, implicitly [...]
Escalating Heatwave Activity and Return Periods Across the Climatic Zones of Ghana
Published: 2026-09-25
Subjects: Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology
Heatwaves are an increasing public health concern in West Africa, yet their characteristics and recurrence across Ghana’s climatic zones remain poorly quantified. Previous assessments in Ghana have largely focused on individual cities and percentile-based thresholds, which characterize extremes relative to the local climatology but do not explicitly account for recently experienced thermal [...]
Assessment of global variations in the velocity–porosity relationship of marine sediments and rocks using the legacy data of scientific ocean drilling programs
Published: 2026-09-11
Subjects: Earth Sciences
The physical properties of sediments and rocks are routinely measured during scientific ocean drilling programs, as such data enable the recovered materials to be linked to geophysical observations and provide constraints on subseafloor lithology. However, lithological descriptions are not consistently linked to physical properties datasets for older drilling expeditions, thereby limiting global [...]
Linear geophysical inversion with seismic image-guided kriging
Published: 2026-09-07
Subjects: Geophysics and Seismology
Linear geophysical inversions, such as the mapping of surface gravity anomaly to subsurface density anomaly, are a cornerstone of geophysical practice. However, the high degree of ill-posedness of such problems makes interpretation of the resulting subsurface models challenging. I develop a methodology to combine surface potential field measurements, direct subsurface sampling through scout [...]
Hydroclimatic Regime Shifts and Compound Heat–Dry Events in Rajshahi Division, Bangladesh: Integrating Thermal Gradients, Change-Point Detection, and Heat-Driven Dryness Dynamics (1992–2022)
Published: 2026-08-08
Subjects: Climate, Environmental Indicators and Impact Assessment, Environmental Monitoring, Hydrology, Meteorology, Other Earth Sciences, Other Oceanography and Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology, Statistical Models
Hydroclimatic variability and compound climate extremes are increasingly affecting monsoon-dominated regions of South Asia, particularly drought-prone northwestern Bangladesh. However, integrated assessments of thermal dynamics, atmospheric moisture, land–atmosphere coupling, and compound heat–dry events remain limited in the regional context. Therefore, this study investigated long-term [...]
Lead contamination in cassava-based food and tubers (Manihot esculenta Crantz) in French Guiana: evidence for soil-to-plant transfer as the primary source
Published: 2026-07-30
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
This study investigates lead (Pb) contamination in cassava in French Guiana, focusing on its sources, accumulation processes, and. Previous studies in the area have shown that cassava-based products could be a source of lead in diets, raising concern about human exposure. The results show that cassava tubers often contain lead concentrations and 72% of the analysed samples (n=81) exceed [...]
Machine-learning-based classification of shear-band particles in a discrete-element reverse-fault model
Published: 2026-07-24
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Engineering
Discrete element method (DEM) simulations provide time-resolved particle-scale information on particle motion, contact forces, rotation, and local deformation. However, these outputs are high-dimensional, making it difficult to directly interpret which particle-level descriptors characterize localized deformation. This study develops a machine-learning workflow for classifying shear-band [...]
Ground Motion Model Incorporating Azimuthal Dependence on Topographic Effects in Japan
Published: 2026-07-02
Subjects: Engineering
Conventional topographic terms in ground motion models (GMMs) typically characterize topographic effects using site-specific parameters such as relative elevation, curvature, or slope. This study demonstrates that topographic response is influenced by source-to-site geometry, specifically the incidence direction with respect to the slope aspect. Utilizing 15,189 records from 641 Kiban–Kyoshin [...]
Clay Characterization of Tiller Flotten Quick Clay
Published: 2026-07-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Mineral Physics, Other Earth Sciences, Soil Science
In this study, we investigate the mineralogical and physicochemical properties of the Tiller–Flotten quick clay formation in Trondheim, Norway. The objective is to enhance our understanding of particle interactions within this quick clay system, thereby contributing to the development of more environmentally friendly stabilization strategies. A comprehensive suite of analytical techniques was [...]
Socio-Demographic Predictors of Earthquake Preparedness Among University Students: Evidence from a Public University in Bangladesh
Published: 2026-06-21
Subjects: Geography
Bangladesh is exceptionally prone to recurring hydrological and meteorological disasters, which have traditionally dominated the national policy and disaster management discourse. Consequently, seismic risk remains heavily underemphasized, leaving major urban centers like Dhaka highly vulnerable to catastrophic human and structural losses from potential earthquakes. While structural mitigation [...]
Analyzing The Capabilities Of Frugal Digital Twins For Sustainable Smart City Infrastructure Development In Africa: An ESGS Perspective From Ghana.
Published: 2026-06-19
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering
Digital twins, virtual replicas that mirror physical infrastructure through real-time data, have emerged as a pivotal technology for smart city development globally. However, their deployment in developing countries remains constrained by high costs, limited digital infrastructure, and insufficient local expertise. This paper analyses the capabilities of frugal digital twins as enablers of [...]