Research Project Details
Project Leader: Professor Adisa Azapagic
Project Duration: August 2003 - July 2009.
Funding Value: £2m.
Funding Source: EPSRC SUE (Sustainable Urban Environments) Programme
Project Partners:
- Cardiff University
- Forest Research
- London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
- University of Exeter
- University of Sheffield
- University of Surrey
- ARPA Sicily
- ARUP
- BCSD-UK
- BRE
- EA
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- Forestry Commission
- Golders
- HPA
- NSCA
- QUB
- SEPA
- SEEDA
- SNIFFER
- TRL
- UKWIR
- WRc
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Project Overview
The aim of the PUrE project was to develop an integrated decision-support framework comprising a suite of appropriate models and tools for a more sustainable management of urban pollution.
The specific research objectives and themes of the project were:
- to develop further understanding of and to establish links between sources, pollutants and human activities in the urban environment
- to develop an integrated approach to the selection and application of appropriate tools for modelling the fate and transport of a range of pollutants in the urban environment which considers important processes and key dynamic aspects
- to develop an assessment methodology and integrate a suite of appropriate models and tools to help urban stakeholders understand the potential human health and ecological impacts of pollution in the urban environment
- to understand the relationships between socio-economic factors, human behaviour and urban pollution and to ensure that a robust understanding of these issues underpinned the methodological development of the PUrE programme
- to develop a methodology that enabled consideration of spatial and temporal dimensions of urban pollution
- to develop a methodology for integrated sustainability assessments of alternative options (human activities, technologies, policies etc.) and scenarios, showing explicit trade-offs between environmental, social and economic criteria and enabling balanced decision making
- to develop a better understanding of complex relationships between pollution, policy and liability
- to understand the main risks and uncertainties in different elements of the PUrE methodology and decision-support framework, including uncertainties in the decisionmaking process.
The main deliverables were a decision-support methodology, modelling platform (software) incorporating a suite of models and tools, and the end-user guidance documents.
