https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14178/908 Tue, 20 Oct 2026 04:09:02 GMT 2026-10-20T04:09:02Z https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14178/3999 Brief communication: Towards defining the worst-case breach scenarios and potential flood volumes for moraine-dammed lake outbursts Emmer, Adam; Sattar, Ashim; Hrebrina, Jan Moraine dam failures are the main source of catastrophic glacial lake outburst floods (GLOFs). The effective GLOF disaster risk management requires reliable identification of areas at risk. While predictive outburst flood modelling benefits from advancing tools and computational capacities, some of the fundamental considerations remain poorly addressed. Among them, the outburst flood scenarios are essential yet often oversimplified input for modelling. Here we present novel methodology which enables the estimation of a maximum breach depth and so the calculation of potential flood volume (PFV) in geotechnical data-scarce regions, with the key parameter being the slope of the breached channel (alpha) derived from past events. Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14178/3999 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14178/3998 GWSWEX v1.0: a dual-solver 1D unsaturated zone model for mass-conservative groundwater recharge and runoff computation in distributed hydrological modelling Kootanoor Sheshadrivasan, Veethahavya; Langhammer, Jakub Faithful numerical representation of the coupled groundwater (GW)-unsaturated-zone (UZ)-surface-water (SW) dynamics at regional scales is constrained by the structural extremes currently available: fully three-dimensional Richards-equation solvers resolve variably saturated flow rigorously but at a per-evaluation cost that forecloses ensemble calibration and multi-decadal projection, whereas conceptual bucket schemes cannot track a moving groundwater head, represent capillary rise, or impose a soil-moisture-dependent evapotranspiration (ET) stress. This study introduces GWSWEX (Groundwater-Surface Water EXchange), a vertically resolved, process-based UZ model designed to sit between an external GW model and an external SW model within an integrated modelling chain. Its principal innovations are two interchangeable solvers behind a single unified API: an explicit operator-split bucket-sequence solver with CFL-adaptive sub-stepping and an implicit mixed-form Richards solver with Picard linearisation, sharing the same Mualem-van Genuchten constitutive relations and piecewise-linear drainable-volume function for a freely moving groundwater head; the per-step storage budget closes to floating-point tolerance in the explicit solver and to a small, well-characterised residual in the implicit solver, enabling a coupled GW-UZ-SW iteration to converge without under-relaxation. Verification against HYDRUS-1D across six soil profiles under two contrasting forcing scenarios shows sub-centimetre to near-centimetre groundwater-head accuracy under smooth daily forcing, with eleven of twelve basic-scenario cases attaining an RMSE at or below the 2 cm discretisation step and a wet-phase mean RMSE of approximately 4 cm (implicit) and 8 cm (explicit) under intensive hourly forcing; an iterated one-at-a-time sensitivity analysis characterises the empirical parameters and the structural limits of the layered-bucket abstraction, while a parallel-ensemble benchmark shows both solvers completing a thousand-column ensemble six to twelve times faster than parallelised HYDRUS-1D, at sub-linear run-time scaling exponents of approximately 0.92-0.93 that render ensemble-grade calibration and multi-decadal projection tractable on mainstream consumer-grade hardware. Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14178/3998 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14178/3995 Soil contamination by military explosives: a review of environmental fate, toxicity, and preliminary findings from war-affected Ukraine Dziubii, Olha; Semerád, Jaroslav; Chrzanowski, Lukasz; Cajthaml, Tomáš Explosives are recalcitrant organic pollutants persisting in war-affected soils. While well-documented at training sites, contamination in active combat zones remains understudied, posing immediate threats to agriculture and human health. This review examines the environmental fate and toxicology of key explosive classes: nitroaromatics such as 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene (TNT) and dinitrotoluene (DNT); nitramines including hexahydro-1,3,5-trinitro-1,3,5-triazine (RDX) and octahydro-1,3,5,7-tetranitro-1,3,5,7-tetreazocine (HMX); nitrate esters like pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN) and nitroglycerin (NG); and insensitive munitions including 2,4-dinitroanisole (DNAN), 3-nitro-1,2,4-triazol-5-one (NTO), and nitroguanidine (NQ). Supplementing this review, we present preliminary soil screening data from frontline and urban areas of Ukraine (2022-2025). These compounds are highly toxic and persistent; TNT and DNT are phytotoxic and potentially carcinogenic, while RDX and HMX are highly mobile and bioaccumulate in crops. Despite being considered safer, DNAN exhibits chronic phytotoxicity and food-chain bioaccumulation. Crucially, transformation products such as aminodinitrotoluenes (ADNTs), nitroso-intermediates, and azo-dimers can exhibit greater toxicity than the parent compounds but remain largely unmonitored. Co-contamination with heavy metals suppresses biodegradation, and synergistic interactions of explosive mixtures are not very well described. The Ukrainian case study revealed extreme spatial variability of TNT, RDX, HMX, and ADNTs, with specific samples exceeding human-health risk-based screening levels. In general, explosive residues in post-conflict environments represent a significant long-term environmental and health risk, underscoring the need for improved assessment of mixture toxicity and co-contamination dynamics, and for the development of robust in situ monitoring strategies to support effective remediation of war-affected regions. Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14178/3995 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14178/3994 Microplastics as vectors of chemical additives: a critical evaluation of experimental assumptions, environmental realism, and risk interpretation Icoz, Hakan; Lisiecka, Natalia; Ciesielski, Tomasz; Wozniak-Karczewska, Marta; Parus, Anna; Heipieper, Hermann J.; Cajthaml, Tomáš; Roccaro, Paolo; Chrzanowski, Lukasz Microplastics (MPs) have evolved from emerging pollutants to one of the most intensively studied environmental stressors, yet this rapid growth has not been fueled by methodological consistency or environmental realism. Many studies continue to apply arbitrary polymer selection and short-term oxidation protocols to simplify experiments, which produce results that are difficult to compare to natural systems. As a result, the environmental fate and toxicity of MPs remain poorly understood, and their role as vectors for chemical pollutants is still debated. This review critically examines these limitations and develops a framework that links polymer chemistry, additive composition, and environmental aging with toxicity and bioavailability. It demonstrates that factors such as additive leaching, realistic aging conditions, or multi-contaminant exposure are often neglected, which leads to distorted interpretations of MP-pollutant interactions. By compiling findings across studies on sorption, leaching, inherent toxicity, and co-contaminant toxicity, the main sources of inconsistency and bias that hinder comparability between studies are identified. The review emphasizes that MP behavior cannot be captured through single-factor, short-term experiments but instead requires coordinated, standardized approaches that mirror natural heterogeneity. The proposed framework advances the field toward more reproducible and environmentally grounded research capable of supporting credible risk assessment and evidencebased environmental policy. Thu, 01 Jan 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14178/3994 2026-01-01T00:00:00Z