Preprints
There are 4595 Preprints listed.
“Is my tap water safe to drink?”: assessing a national sample of Consumer Confidence Reports for public health communication
Published: 2024-05-03
Subjects: Public Health
The Environmental Protection Agency requires that public water systems create an annual report for their customers. This report is known as a “Consumer Confidence Report” (CCR) and was claimed to be the “centerpiece” of consumer right-to-know under the Safe Drinking Water Act. However, previous research indicates that CCRs are not understandable to members of the American public; as such, they [...]
Adoption of on-farm water management strategies and its impact on household welfare: Evidence from the Upper Ewaso Ng’iro North Catchment Area, Kenya
Published: 2024-05-03
Subjects: Agriculture
On-farm water management strategies can be classified into technological and non-technological options. While, numerous studies have assessed the drivers of the adoption of conservation strategies, few have assessed the welfare impacts of adoption. Analysis was conducted on cross-sectional farm household data collected from 652 households randomly selected from eight sub-catchments of the Upper [...]
Modeling heat flux in the Beaufort Gyre between 2016 and 2019.
Published: 2024-05-03
Subjects: Civil and Environmental Engineering
Leads are a primary component of heat flux during polar night-time in the Arctic Ocean. During the winter, there is negligible shortwave radiation incident on the ice surface. Instead, open water and thin ice lead formations on the ice are the primary contributors of longwave radiation. In fact, open water leads produce turbulent heat flux up to 600 W.m-2 while multi-year ice is typically less [...]
Earth Science Data Repositories: Implementing the CARE Principles
Published: 2024-05-03
Subjects: Earth Sciences
How do ancient mass-transport complexes influence subsequent failure events? A case study from the Kangaroo Syncline, offshore NW Australia
Published: 2024-05-03
Subjects: Geology, Geomorphology, Sedimentology
Mass-transport complexes (MTCs) are common features in all continental margins. In some passive margins, accumulations of stacked MTCs indicate repeated slope failure, which raises the question of whether MTC emplacement may influence or even pre-condition, subsequent slope failures. Here, we use 3D seismic reflection data from the Kangaroo Syncline, NW Australia, to investigate how pre-existing [...]
Fiber optic sensing for volcano monitoring and imaging volcanic processes
Published: 2024-05-03
Subjects: Physical Sciences and Mathematics
This chapter describes fiber optic sensing methodologies and their applications for understanding volcanic structure and processes. We assess their benefits for volcano monitoring and offer possible solutions to address their challenges. The physical principles at the basis of fiber optic sensing technologies have been known for several decades. These principles are related to various processes [...]
CO2 sensitivity studies under laboratory and outdoor conditions as contribution to climate change discussions
Published: 2024-05-02
Subjects: Engineering, Physical Sciences and Mathematics
The EU considers climate change as an existential threat and wants to reduce net greenhouse gas emissions by at least 55% by 2030 and down to 0% by 2050 within the "EU Green Deal" and economic growth should be decoupled from the use of energy resources. It therefore sees fighting climate change as one of the most important targets1. There is considerable dis-consensus about growing CO2 levels in [...]
Modeling of Harmful Algal Bloom Dynamics and Integrated Web Framework for Inland Waters in Iowa
Published: 2024-05-02
Subjects: Environmental Sciences
Harmful algal blooms (HABs) are one of the major environmental concerns, as they have various negative effects on public health, recreational services, ecological balance, wildlife, fisheries, microbiota, water quality, and economics. HABs are caused by many sources, such as water pollution based on agricultural activities, wastewater treatment plant discharges, leakages from sewer systems, [...]
Interpretable Quality Control of Sparsely Distributed Environmental Sensor Networks Using Graph Neural Networks
Published: 2024-05-02
Subjects: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Earth Sciences
Environmental sensor networks play a crucial role in monitoring key parameters essential for understanding Earth’s systems. To ensure the reliability and accuracy of collected data, effective quality control (QC) measures are essential. Conventional QC methods struggle to handle the complexity of environmental data. Conversely, advanced techniques such as neural networks, are typically not [...]
Controls on mesophotic carbonate facies and sediment distribution across the Maltese shelf, central Mediterranean Sea
Published: 2024-05-02
Subjects: Other Environmental Sciences, Sedimentology
Although ~20% of global carbonate occurs on extra-tropical shelves, our understanding of these depositional environments still lags far behind that of tropical carbonate platforms. The Maltese shelf in the central Mediterranean offers an opportunity to study in situ facies distribution in a light-dominated extra-tropical carbonate platform and the factors controlling them. The Maltese shelf [...]
The potential of terrestrial and aquatic molluscs for the temporal analysis of Deckenschotter deposits and younger Quaternary sediments from the Swiss Plateau
Published: 2024-05-02
Subjects: Earth Sciences, Geology, Geomorphology, Paleobiology, Paleontology, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Sedimentology, Soil Science, Stratigraphy, Terrestrial and Aquatic Ecology
A critical appraisal of water table depth estimation: Challenges and opportunities within machine learning
Published: 2024-05-02
Subjects: Applied Statistics, Hydrology
Fine-resolution spatial patterns of water table depth (WTD) can inform the dynamics of groundwater-dependent systems, including ecological, hydrological, and anthropogenic systems. Generally, a large-scale (e.g., continental or global) spatial map of static WTD can be simulated using either physically-based (PB) or machine learning-based (ML) models. We construct three fine-resolution (500 m) ML [...]
GeoAI and the Future of Spatial Analytics
Published: 2024-05-01
Subjects: Computer Sciences, Earth Sciences, Environmental Sciences, Environmental Studies, Geography, Library and Information Science, Physical Sciences and Mathematics, Social and Behavioral Sciences
This chapter discusses the challenges of traditional spatial analytical methods in their limited capacity to handle big and messy data, as well as mining unknown or latent patterns. It then introduces a new form of spatial analytics – geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI) - and describes the advantages of this new strategy in big data analytics and data-driven discovery. Finally, a [...]
Integrating Vision-Based AI and Language Models for Real-Time Water Pollution Surveillance
Published: 2024-05-01
Subjects: Electrical and Computer Engineering, Engineering
Water pollution has become a major concern in recent years, affecting over 2 billion people worldwide, according to UNESCO. This pollution can occur naturally, such as through algal blooms, or it can be man-made when toxic substances are released into water bodies like lakes, rivers, springs, and oceans. To address this issue and monitor surface-level water pollution in local water bodies, an [...]
Study on the Assessment of the Development Level of Digital Economy in the Yellow River Basin Economic Zone and the Evolution of Time and Space
Published: 2024-05-01
Subjects: Statistics and Probability
Based on the Statistical Classification of the Digital Economy and Its Core Industries (2021) and considering the characteristics of the Yellow River Basin Economic Belt, this paper selects 25 secondary indicators from 5 dimensions (digital infrastructure, digital industrialization, industrial digitization, digital innovation and agricultural modernization). A scientific and practical evaluation [...]