Research
	MSc EDE >> CBES >> ENERGY INSTITUTE >> URBAN POLLUTION HOME
CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS - Carbon monoxide in homes - Bridging the Gaps: Sustainable urban spaces BTG:SUS - LUCID Local Urban Climate - Vivacity2020: Designing Environmental Quality into city centre living overview - UrbanBuzz RETILE-COMBEEP - UrbanBuzz Sustainable design training PREVIOUS RESEARCH PROJECTS - Gas Appliance Check Project - Neuro-psychological effects of CO - WHO LARES Housing and Health project - Breathing Zone Filtration (BZF) - Energy and Environmental Prediction Model (EEP) Air Pollution in -Streets -Offices -Homes Other topic pages  - Dust Mask Info  - Streetbox  - Carbon monoxide info - Tube  - Email Pollution People	CURRENT PROJECTS BTG:SUS Bridging the Gaps: Sustainable urban spaces EPSRC EP/F032714 From Feb 2008 – Feb 2011 Joint project, led by Sarah Bell, with Muki Haklay, Simon Julier, project webpage here http://www.ucl.ac.uk/btg/ and EPSRC information here CARBON MONOXIDE in homes General ongoing theme of research, this page has full details, covering recent research projects and current concerns. Click here LUCID The Development of a Local Urban Climate Model and its Application to the Intelligent Development of Cities EPSRC Grant reference number EP/E016375/1 Co-investigator on project will include measurements of urban heat island effect and possibly some building modelling, due to start June 2007. Project Overview here from the EPSRC web pages. LUCID project pages here Platform Grant: Complex Built Environment Systems EPSRC Grant reference number EP/E016375/1 Co-investigator on this platform grant, the second such one to be awarded to the Bartlett School of graduate studies, EPSRC awarding general funding for the group. Web page with information on the Complex Built Environment Systems group is here Project Overview from the EPSRC web pages. PREVIOUS PROJECTS URBAN BUZZ: RETILE COMBEEP Real-time learning for community-based environmental projects, this project with lead researcher Gemma Moore, is with Groundwork , a UK charity involved in regeneration projects. More on this from the UrbanBuzz webpages can be found here. URBAN BUZZ: Sustainable design training programme I am an air pollution advisor for this project led by Julian Hart of Lancefield Consulting, it aims to help planning authorities to understand better some holistic aspects of the consequences of planning decisions. More information can be found on the UrbanBuzz webpages here. Vivacity2020: EPSRC Consortium project under the Sustainable Urban Environments Programme EPSRC Grant reference number GR/S18380/01 Whole project Overview here- Vivacity2020: (Overall project overview) Work Package 4: Designing Environmental Quality into city centre living, working pages here - Vivacity2020: Designing Environmental Quality into city centre living overview Gas Appliance Check Project (Summer 2006) A project funded by the Health and Safety Executive to investigate prevalence of defective gas appliance installations in typical homes, 597 homes had their gas appliances checked. Around 20% of all homes had at least one problem gas appliance installation, around 6% of all homes were assessed as having a high risk of exposure to carbon monoxide concentrations above the WHO 1 hour guideline level of 26ppm. An indication linking neurological symptoms to problem appliances was found also. Full public report on HSE website here. Neuropsychological Effects of Low Level Exposure to Indoor Carbon Monoxide (Winter 2002/2003, and  Winter 2004/2005) (Leonardi GS, Karalliedde L, Riddington M, Volans G            Guy’s & St Thomas’ Hospital, London) (Hutchinson E, Wilkinson P London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine)          (Croxford B        Bartlett School of Graduate Studies, University College London) (McKenna L, Nicholson L            South London and Maudsley Trust, London) A joint project funded by the Department of Health examining the association between neuropsychological function and chronic exposure to carbon monoxide (CO) in indoor air. The neuropsychological part of the study aims to understand the relationship between perceived exposure to CO, actual exposure to CO and objectively measured neuropsychological function. The monitoring part of the study involves the use of ICOM monitors based on the StreetBox technology developed especially for this project by Learian (now Routesafe, full information on this page). The first winter of monitoring found 25% of vulnerable homes experienced CO levels exceeding WHO guidelines. With the support of a charity, CO Gas Safety, an expert gas engineer was employed to investigate 10 of the 13 exceedances, his reports highlighted old, poorly maintained gas fires and gas cookers as the most common source of high CO emissions. Other exceedances could be explained by poor installation and also incense sticks. It is hoped several academic papers will be produced from this work. Large Analysis and Review of European housing and health Status LARES WHO (2003-) Analysis focusing on hygrothermal conditions and health, of a large dataset gathered by the World Health Organisation, further details can be found here. http://www.euro.who.int/Housing/Activities/20020711_1 Housing Condition and Health (EEP II) (1998-2001) Project Title: The Energy and Environmental Prediction program: Phase II A three year project funded under the Sustainable cities programme of the EPSRC which aims to build on the first EEP model constructed by to help local authorities assess the effects of building stock refurbishment on CO2 emissions throughout their borough. Phase II improves upon this by adding a transport emissions module, a pollutant dispersion module and a health effects module to the original model. I am involved with developing a health module for this project which will attempt to link public health research to house condition information in order to assess the health impacts of different refurbishment options. The project is part of a 4 university study carried out in conjunction with the Welsh School of Architecture, Queens University Belfast, and the Institute of Energy and Sustainable development, De Montfort University Air pollution in streets Project Title: The Effects of street grid configuration on pedestrian exposure to vehicular pollution: civilising urban traffic (1994-96). (GR/J 50613) A two year project looking at the distribution of air pollution between city streets, which was rated ALPHA 4 on review, November 96. See the FINAL REPORT including the major findings, submitted to the funding body EPSRC Also a full paper from the project presented in Copenhagen, During the course of this project the StreetBox was developed now available commercially. An animation of some of the data gathered during this project can be downloaded, click and hold down on this link, choose "Save this link as....", then choose "source". (Mac format only, 556K). The movie shows hourly pollutant concentrations changing over time in 8 streets around the area of UCL, the arrow represents wind direction and its colour represents wind speed. It was produced using a 3D GIS system developed as part of the Intelligent Architecture project. Air pollution in kitchens Project Title: Carbon Monoxide concentrations and ventilation strategies in dwellings (1996-1998). This project now finished was funded by the Partners in Technology programme (PiT) of the DoE (Now DETR). We have monitored 45 houses or flats for CO, NO2 and humidity and dust mites, and linked the results to the type of ventilation in the houses. The occupants were asked to fill in a simple questionnaire. All of the data has been compiled into a single spreadsheet for analysis. The final report is available by request. Carbon monoxide can cause injuries to health, see here.The dwellings chosen were all low income housing with gas cooking and heating, all have been recently built. Craig Milliken, Ian Ridley, Elaine Clarke, Alan Young were all involved with this research. A full description of the project is available here. Air pollution in offices Project Title: Guidelines for the design and operation of natural and mixed mode ventilation systems in commercial buildings. (1996-1998). This consisted of an investigation of eight buildings. My part involved the monitoring of indoor to outdoor ratios of various pollutants, including CO, NO2 and SO2, and also air change rates by using CO2 decay. The project was carried out in conjunction with the Welsh School of Architecture, and the Institute of Energy and Sustainable development, De Montfort University A final report is currently being written. Email Pollution People Group The idea of this group is to exchange ideas and information and provide support a list of people working in the field of air pollution. Abstracts explaining their work, and methods of contacting them can be found on the Email Pollution People home page Current UK membership is over 100, A full cross-referenced table containing links to people and institutions in the Email Pollution People Group can be found here. (dated 1999) Transport Emissions Modelling A recent interest has been to link GIS systems (MapInfo) with SATURN transport flow models along with emissions factors from the London Research centre to visualise the effects of different transport planning options on overall pollutant emission levels on a per link basis. Other small projects have included an analysis of Clear Zones for the London Borough of Camden Space Syntax and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) The post-graduate part of the Bartlett has a strong research department investigating various aspects of the spatial layout of cities. This topic is called "Space syntax" and is based around a method for quantifying how a network of lines of sight around a city are connected. Each line of sight can be given a number relating to how well it fits in to the system as a whole. This is called its integration value, and this value can be linked to traffic flows, pedestrian flows and used to study other variables such as crime rate. I have been an adviser on several MSc projects, some involving space syntax, looking at topics such as; - pollution exposure of taxi drivers. - how crime is linked to the spatial layout of a city (space syntax). - how land use is linked to spatial layout (space syntax) - the estimation of critical links in urban road networks, possible uses might be to estimate the onset of gridlock or the importance of bridge closures.	Photo to appear here.. one day! BARTLETT ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH CBES Review Jan 2008 (pdf) Environment Focus 2004 (pdf) Environment Focus 2003 (pdf) Environment Focus 1999 This page, set up and run by Dr. Ben Croxford, (Checked links Aug 2009)
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