CArE-Cities: Clean air engineering for cities

Start date

January 2019

End date

July 2020

Overview

Air pollution causes seven million premature deaths worldwide, disproportionately affecting poor and vulnerable communities and exacerbating inequalities among the masses in official development assistance (ODA) countries. This complex problem requires a holistic understanding of the whole process from pollution to solution by building interdisciplinary interfaces.

CArE-Cities is a seed funding project, awarded by the University of Surrey under the Research England’s Global Challenge Research Funds. CArE-Cities involves 11 Development Assistance Committee (DAC) listed countries and aspires to bring cleaner air to cities by building a knowledge exchange platform. Its activities include joint workshops, researchers exchange and pilot studies to address urban development and health impact assessment agendas in ODA countries.

Aims and objectives

With a collaborative vision of ‘clean air for all’, CArE-Cities aims to establish a multidisciplinary team for understanding emissions, penetrating low-cost pollution monitoring technology and exposure reduction strategies in selected ODA cities to develop a scientific framework for managing air pollution impacts on the health of people in these cities.

CArE-Cities will assess the commuters’ exposure through collecting primary concentration data and evaluating different control scenarios to propose optimal transport emission control programs to reduce the impact on human health in Cairo and Sao Paulo; and assessing the feasibility of similar studies in countries such as Malawi, Tanzania, Iraq, Bangladesh and Ethiopia.

Consolidating on the findings of the project, the team aims to develop larger research grant proposals with involved partners in future.

Types of cities

Frontrunner cities

Frontrunner cities will carry out pilot studies.

Follower cities

Follower cities are expected to initiate pilot studies on their own; participate in CArE-Cities workshops and we will donate one low-cost pollution sensor to each of them to carry out pilot studies adopting the approach developed and used in our frontrunner cities.

Observer cities

Observer cities will be invited to workshop as participants and they will share their experiences and feedback during workshops.

CArE-Cities will make novel contributions to the air pollution problem in the transport sector of chosen cities building upon past and ongoing projects, researchers exchange, pilot studies and workshops. Our concept of frontrunner, follower and observer cities will ensure engagement and benefit to everyone involved.

Funding amount

£135,000

Funder

Team

Core team members

Sarkawt Hama

Dr Sarkawt Hama

Research Fellow

Sachit Mahajan

Research Fellow

Rana Moustafa

Postgraduate Research Student

Collaborating Surrey academics, PhD and ECRs

Abigail Bristow

Professor Abigail Bristow

Transport economics

Alisdair Campbell

Dr Alisdair Campbell

Combustion modelling

Abhijith Kooloth Valappil

GCARE PhD Researcher, Surrey

Marco Placidi

Dr Marco Placidi

Environmental Fluid Mechanics

Arvind Tiwari

GCARE PhD Researcher, Surrey