Buildings as part of a climate-smart city system – views from research

CIBSE Adaptive Cities special interest group meeting

Tuesday 21st April, London South Bank University

About us

Originally the Adaptation and Resilience to a Changing

Climate Coordination Network (ARCC CN)

Funded by EPSRC since January 2009 to:

• promote stakeholder engagement and targeted dissemination

• maximise the potential benefits of the research to all end users

• promote collaboration of researchers

• facilitate the further exploration of related knowledge and knowledge

gaps

About us

• Initially we ran a rolling suite of multi-disciplinary, EPSRC-

funded research projects

The ARCC network added value to that being done at the project level by: • supporting their impacts activities • looking across the projects – in a

thematic manner • Facilitating stakeholder

engagement

About us

Now the Adaptation and Resilience in the Context

of Change Network

We provide a UK-wide network to develop and exchange knowledge and

evidence to inform policy and practice. Funded by EPSRC, our focus is

adaptation to changes in the built environment and infrastructure

Our three core objectives:

• building community cohesion to develop in-depth understanding and synergies across the

network

• provision and integration of knowledge to help ensure policy and practice have the best

available evidence

• enhanced accessibility and uptake of research outputs to meet the needs of a diverse

stakeholder community in a timely manner.

ARCC – smart adapting cities projects

• ARCADIA – understanding the inter-relationships between climate impacts, urban

economy, land use, transport and the built environment to help design cities that are

more resilient and adaptable.

• CLUES – assessing the development of decentralised energy systems in urban areas in the

light of national decarbonisation and urban sustainability goals.

• iBUILD – new approaches to infrastructure business models, particularly focusing at the

local and city scale.

• Liveable Cities – developing a method of designing and engineering low carbon, resource

secure, wellbeing maximised UK cities.

• Retrofit2050 – understanding urban scale retrofitting to promote managed socio-technical

transitions in built environment and urban infrastructure.

• SECURE – enabling integration of resource-supply-demand-waste systems across city-to-

regional scales to create integrated policies and planning.

• 4M – investigating the urban carbon footprint of a city (Leicester).

Example: ARCADIA

ARCADIA - a new system of models for analysing climate risks and

assessing the performance of options for adapting to climate change.

The models developed have been integrated within the Urban Integrated Assessment Framework (UIAF)

The UIAF incorporates future scenarios of climate, economic, demographic, and land use change, and starts to incorporate important feedbacks between these models. The framework enables the exploration of a range of climate and socio-economic scenarios and their implications, providing a whole-system approach to assessing adaptation strategies to enhance future urban sustainability.

ARCADIA outcomes

1. An analysis of the governance arrangements for adaptation. Understanding of the rapidly evolving governance context for

adaptation helped to set the scene for the ARCADIA work on urban climate impacts and adaptation

2. A qualitative systems description of the direct and indirect impacts of climate change on urban areas, economy and society.

London’s adaptation and other policies have been analysed with respect to their coverage of the direct and indirect impacts of a

changing climate.

3. A spatial weather generator for urban areas. A new UKCP09-compliant weather generator includes spatial correlation of heat and

rainfall and allows exploration of the potential effects of different proportions of urban land cover and emissions of waste heat on

urban climate. The final version of this tool has been tested and a Graphical User Interface developed.

4. Analysis of the indirect effects of climate events on the urban economy. A small set of illustrative scenarios demonstrate how for

large disruptive events the indirect economic impacts can exceed the direct impacts, although for smaller events the direct impacts

dominate. The magnitude of damage is shown to depend critically on how post-event recovery resources are allocated.

5. Analysis of the potential effects of disruption on the transport network: a multi-model transport model has been developed which

can simulate the effects of transport disruptions. This has been used to calculate the risks of heat-related disruption.

6. Analysis of adaptation options. The new capability for analysing urban heat and flood risks has been used to quantify the benefits of

potential adaptation strategies, including thermal design of buildings and improved resilience of transport networks.

7. Provides a methodological approach for urban integrated assessment and climate risk analysis. The methodological approach

integrates new and updated model components within an Urban Integrated Assessment Framework (UIAF) to facilitate the analysis of

multiple climate risks and adaptation options for urban systems.

ARCADIA outcomes

London Underground, Cooling the Tube Programme:

London Underground provided platform temperature sensor data which could be used to infer external to internal temperatures, as well

as outputs from a passenger thermal comfort model.

The ARCADIA team used outputs from the spatial urban Weather Generator to provide a risk based analysis of the future number of days

when passengers travelling on sections of the Tube could be subjected to thermal discomfort under future scenarios of climate change,

and the potential number of passengers dissatisfied.

Further work being carried out by PhD student Ashley Kingsborough

PhD: Climate Change Risk Assessment, Decision Making and the Development of Adaptation Pathways

Investigating the co-benefits for addressing extremes across scales and exploring implementation of a number of adaptation strategies

and their impacts on risk profiles including:

• Changing energy demand

• Urban greening

• Air conditioning

Infrastructure – above ground

ENHANCE (Enhancing Risk Management Partnerships for

Catastrophic Natural Disasters in Europe).

Focused on flood risk in London, and the role of economic instruments for risk reduction and

management. Provides present-day probabilistic risk analyses for surface water flooding in

London, will draw on and expand existing work from ARCADIA.

Agent based approach used as a good tool for understanding systems and their behaviour, and for

simulating and visualising effects of changing behaviour over time which can:

• Demonstrate the effect of flood risk and insurance on household wealth and the potential for spatial shifts

in inequality as a consequence of flood damage and insurance (un)availability.

• Focus on the partnership between government and the insurance industry, including Flood Re

• The role of flood defences and Property Level Protection Measures (PLPMs) for risk reduction

ARCADIA results are feeding into an EU project

CIBSE Adaptive Cities SIG discussion

Discussion of the relevance of these research projects

• Where do building services feature?

• Should they feature to a greater detail?

• How are these findings useful or not to CIBSE members?

SMART CITIES

ICT centric…

Smart adapting cities –ICT research underway

• The London Node - the ability of ICT to enable the control and planning of

smart city infrastructure. Focuses on:

o Cyber-Physical Systems o Smart Energy o Future Cloud o Health and Wellbeing o Urban Life and Mobility

A European entrepreneurs in digital innovation & education ICT lab.

Partners include: Imperial College London, UCL, Intel and BT + affiliate partners -Vodafone, IBM, the University of

Edinburgh and the Institute for Sustainability

• Imperial’s Digital City Exchange (DCE): a 5-year (2011-2016), £5.9M inter-

disciplinary RCUK Digital Economy smart cities research programme.

Researchers are exploring ways to digitally link utilities and services within a city, enabling new technical and business

opportunities.

o Research combines engineering, systems analysis, business model innovation and use studies, with analysis of data security and privacy.

o Research focuses on advanced virtual prototyping, visualisation of large complex data-sets, and commercialisation pathways.

High tech to human centric design of cities

• ‘Bristol is Open’ smart city programme -a JV between Bristol City Council and

the University of Bristol http://www.bristolisopen.com/.

Bristol university's £12m supercomputer is also being used by the experimental smart city project. Professor Dimitra

Simeonidou, High Performance Networks Lab, Bristol University

• Citizen Sensing and Environmental Practice: Assessing Participatory

Engagements with Environments through Sensor Technologies

European Research Council starting grant, (2013-2017) led by Dr Jennifer Gabrys Reader in the Department of Sociology at Goldsmiths,

University of London.

investigates the relationship between technologies and practices of environmental sensing and citizen engagement.

o “Wild Sensing,” focuses on the use of sensors to map and track flora and fauna activity and habitats.

o “Pollution Sensing,” concentrates on the increasing use of sensors to detect environmental disturbance, including air and

water pollution.

o “Urban Sensing,” and focuses on urban sustainability or “smart city” projects that implement sensor technologies to realize more

efficient or environmentally sound urban processes.

Discussion point

Discussion of the relevance of these research projects

• Where do building services feature?

• What are the impacts of citizen based real time data?

• Redefinition of the indoor environment from visual to

multi-sensory

Infrastructure

The UK Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA) 2012 identified some of the key climate

impacts for infrastructure as:

• changes in energy demand due to rising temperatures

• increased flood risks due to more intense rainfall events

• rising sea levels and constraints on water availability for power station operations

• reduction in river flows and ground water levels, limiting sustainable abstraction of water

• failure of the sewage and surface water run-off systems during extreme rainfall events

leading to increased localised flooding risk.

Many aspects of infrastructure are interconnected and dependent on each other; failure in one sector can

quickly lead to a cascade of failures affecting other sectors. Such interdependencies are likely to increase in

future, adding complexity to risk analysis and the decision-making process

Infrastructure and the built environment

• ITRC – UK Infrastructure Transitions Research Consortium developing a new

generation of infrastructure system simulation models and tools to inform the analysis, planning and

design of National Infrastructure, led by Professor Jim Hall, University of Oxford

• CURRENT – Understanding and Managing Energy Use in Future Networks led by Professor David

Hutchinson, Lancaster University

• LAMP POST Robust Intelligent Lamp Post Sensor Networks for Energy Efficient

Transportation Systems –the project was focused on developing radical strategies for the

supply of energy and data communications along existing power transmission lines used by Intelligent

Vehicle and Transport Infrastructures, as a method for data transmission in a large-scale smart sensor

network where sensors are embedded in street furniture

Led by Professor Blythe & Dr Nallanathan; Newcastle University & King’s College London

Infrastructure assets

Below ground… - Mapping the Underworld –integrating utility asset information –

improving detection and knowledge of location without excavation

Achieving Adaptable Assets -five projects exploring a cross-utility approach to sustainable

asset design and management:

• All in One – creating a roadmap for scientists and engineers by identifying the existing challenges and gaps in science

and technology that prevent one utility product from supplying all the services. All in One – identifying the challenges

and gaps in science and technology that prevent one utility product from supplying all the services.

• Land of the MUSCos – to understand the current opportunities and barriers to Multiple Utility Service Companies

development, and to realistically model the socio-technical systemic changes required for a true MUSCo expansion.

• Shock (NOT) Horror – unpicks the potential for radical change to challenge infrastructure stakeholders to move out of

their comfort zone, challenge the current organization of infrastructure in silos, rethink the nature of shocks and devise

new and transformative ways of thinking about infrastructure.

• Transforming Utility Conversion Points – looking across utilities at interdependencies and efficiencies of infrastructure at

points of energy conversion.

• Undermining Infrastructure – to produce a new, low carbon adaptive design paradigm for hyper-efficient use of valuable

materials, leading to a step change in resource use, reduce the vulnerability of future infrastructure, reduce CO2

emissions and enable adaptability.

UK Collaboration for Research in Infrastructure & Cities

Government budget announcement 19th March of £138m towards the UK

Collaboration for Research in Infrastructure and Cities which is being led by

Professor Brian Collins at UCL .

The proposed research stems from a need for UK national and local infrastructure (such as transport, water,

waste, energy and ICT systems) to be fit for purpose for supporting societal development in a changing

world. Other centres are planned for Birmingham, Newcastle, Sheffield and Southampton

UKCIRC will be focused on four strands:

• Investment in capital equipment and facilities (national ‘Laboratories’)

• A national ‘Observatory’ and living laboratories that will establish a network of linked infrastructure

‘observatories’ to test current and proposed urban infrastructure systems, and to enable rapid trialling

of solutions

• A multi-level modelling and simulation environment that allows ‘what if’ experiments to be carried out

• Creation of a Coordination Node (CN) to integrate activities and industry collaboration across UKCRIC,

located at UCL

Infrastructure continued

Network: A joint initiative of the Infrastructure Operators’ Adaptation (IOA) Forum and the ARCC

Network -brings together those within the policy, practice and research communities who are exploring

dependencies and interdependencies in the infrastructure sectors.

Projects:

o iBUILD – developing new approaches to infrastructure business models particularly at the local and city scale.

o ICIF – understanding the opportunities emerging from the increased interdependence of infrastructure

systems.

o ITRC – considering the energy sector within the overall national infrastructure system looking at performance,

risks and interdependencies.

o ReVISIONS – explores the inter-relationships, tensions and interactions between infrastructure policies and

plans at the regional and local scales and explores pathways to reorient the city-region from its ‘linear’ input-

use-dispose metabolism, to a more efficient circular or ‘ecological’ metabolism.

How the ARCC network can support this SIG

The group is interested in adaptability of cities in the face of

increasing impacts of climate change between now and 2050

• To broaden knowledge and awareness of the strategic and practical issues around the

adaptability, sustainability and resilience of cities. The ARCC network works at the

policy-practice-research interface so can assist with awareness raising through its

existing work

• To use all communication channels including social media to disseminate useful,

applicable knowledge in an accessible way. The ARCC network is devising social media

friendly ways of disseminating and making more accessible, research findings. We have

just launched a call with the Homes and Communities Agency to identify current and

recently completed research on the issue of causes, prevention and mitigation of

overheating in homes (particularly new build homes) and the relationship between

overheating, indoor air quality and impacts on residents. We could conduct a call with

this group.

Current call

Disseminating research findings via social media

With an accompanying guide to the research findings

http://www.arcc-network.org.uk/so-what/

Filters to find relevant ‘so what?’ guides

How the ARCC network can support this SIG

The group is interested in adaptability of cities in the face of

increasing impacts of climate change between now and 2050

• To seek collaborations with other groups, networks and societies within and outside of

CIBSE. The ARCC network is happy to help facilitate this and is keen to bring together all

professional institutions that cover the built environment and infrastructure sectors to

discuss and action the challenges involved in multidisciplinary working.

• To interface with research community including sponsoring student research under this

topic, being partners in research projects, encouraging technical papers by academics to

be published in BSER&T or on the Knowledge Portal and working with relevant bodies to

’translate’ research into practical advice. The ARCC network is happy to work with the

group to develop a technical briefing template for research dissemination. In addition,

the ARCC networks has in the past worked with CIBSE on special journal issues and

would be happy to do so again.

Thank you

To provide speakers for events, technical papers, seminars and training courses, and to

organise a programme of events as appropriate. The ARCC network is happy to support this

and to assist in finding relevant research and academic speakers.

From our discussions, I hope to have helped the group

identify:

• Where CIBSE can make a useful contribution

• How the group can focus on applying its specialist skillset

to the relevant issues

Connect with ARCC

Join the discussion on Linkedin

Follow us on Twitter

Visit our website