5 Nov 2019Are you interested in doing a PhD investigating air quality using ADMS-Urban?

CERC are supporting a PhD studentship at Nottingham University, which will investigate possible links between poor air quality, long-term illness and social deprivation. The project will explore the changing spatial and temporal distribution of PM2.5 across the City of Nottingham using available monitoring data and CERC's high-resolution urban air quality model, ADMS-Urban. These data will be combined with hospital admissions data and deprivation indices to investigate the links between air pollution and health in more and less deprived parts of the city, looking at both long and short term pollution exposure.

The studentship is awarded by ENVISION, bringing together a powerful group of UK researchers with industry and NGO partners to provide a new generation of environmental scientists with the skills, knowledge and experience they need to take on the challenges of a changing world.

If you are interested in finding out more about this exciting and challenging project, please follow the link provided or contact Professor Sarah Metcalfe, sarah.metcalfe@nottingham.ac.uk or Dr. J. Duncan Whyatt, d.whyatt@lancaster.ac.uk

25 Oct 2019Google Street View cars measure London's air quality in hyperlocal detail

New measurements have been released which provide a unique insight into London's air pollution at a hyperlocal level. Two Google Street View cars equipped with air quality monitors have been taking readings approximately every 30 metres at tens of thousands of locations while they travel through London's streets. The Breathe London website map developed by CERC shows average values of pollution from these readings.

The mobile monitoring routes are sampled at different times of day, days of week and time of year. These readings have been analysed by EDF to provide median concentrations, representing the expected on-road value during weekday daytime hours over the monitoring period between August 2018 and August 2019.

These median values are displayed on a data platform developed by CERC which provides the maps and visualisations for the Breathe London website. The platform uses the Google Cloud, which enables user-friendly performance when querying these large datasets to provide graphs and visualisations, and ensures the replicability and scalability of the platform to other cities around the world. The platform also automatically ingests and displays data from Breathe London's network of one hundred AQMesh sensors.

18 Oct 2019ADMS User Group Meetings, Oxford, 13-14 Nov: Draft agendas now available

The draft agendas for this year's ADMS User Group Meetings are now available. The meetings are being held at St Anne's College, Oxford, on 13th and 14th November. Places are limited, so please register before 31st October. Attendance is free for those with valid support. Licence holders with valid support can purchase additional places at a reduced rate. Permanent licence holders without support can purchase places at a reduced rate. For full details about entitlements and fees visit the CERC website.

30 Sep 2019Routes to Clean Air 2019

CERC were pleased to attend the Institute of Air Quality Management's annual Routes to Clean Air conference in London on 16^th and 17^th September.

The Routes to Clean Air conferences provide an opportunity for air quality, public health and transport professionals to share their experiences of improving air quality, particularly in urban areas. This year featured an excellent selection of talks on a range of topics including improving air quality, low cost sensors, transport emissions and health effects.

CERC, a previous sponsor of the event, were there this year as one of the conference exhibitors. Over the two days we were delighted to talk to many of the delegates about our software and consultancy services.

30 Aug 2019CERC supporting environmental research at University College London

This summer, four University College London (UCL) MSc students have been using ADMS-Urban in very different ways for their dissertation projects.

Jingyan Wang and Jinwei Xu are using the advanced street canyon option in ADMS-Urban to model air flow and pollutant dispersion within a street canyon in Nicosia, Cyprus, validating against an earlier field campaign measuring wind flow and pollutant concentrations. Jingyan is evaluating the in-canyon pollutant concentrations, whilst Jinwei is comparing the flow regimes observed in the associated water flume laboratory experiments with the ADMS-Urban in-canyon flow field definition.

Xinning Zhang and Carlos Mestre are using the Temperature and Humidity model, looking at urban heat island impacts on different spatial scales. Xinning has configured ADMS-Urban to calculate local temperature variations within Kampung Baru, an area of traditional timber housing in central Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Model predictions of different scenarios are being used to investigate the impact of building morphology and material on the tropical climate (see example modelled temperatures in the image to the right). Carlos is modelling Rotterdam's Urban Heat Island in order to understand the influence of urban geometry. He has analysed the model predictions associated with high-temperature episodes in terms of geometric and aerodynamic properties of the city to allow quantification of the influence of geometry on the spatial variation of temperature within urban areas. Carlos has developed a website which presents his dissertation results.

Jingyan and Jinwei are working with Dr Liora Malki-Epshtein from the Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering. Xinning is working with Dr Kai Wang from the same department — the work being linked to the Newton-Ungku Omar funded project 'Disaster Resilient Cities', which we have previously reported on. Carlos is working with Professor Mike Batty at The Bartlett.