Project

Socio-economic growth has led to rapid urban development in Polish cities, and major and recurrent challenges have arisen linked to uncontrollable urban sprawl development (e.g., transport congestion, high traffic emissions).

This feedback relation is not properly understood by decision-makers, often due to missing evidence-based support.

We aim at developing an integrated framework for analyzing the nexus land use – transport – traffic emissions (LUTEm) associated with urban sprawl development in Polish cities by combining advanced multimodal transport planning and emission modelling.

The LUTEm framework will be applied to real-world case studies in Polish cities to

1. 1. underline negative effects induced by suburbanisation,
   2. assess intervention scenarios and
   3. formulate paths towards green transition in land-use-transport development in case-study cities.

The results will be a novel research support for decision-makers in understanding the land-use-transport interactions, and resultant traffic emissions to improve air quality and mitigate climate change.

To achieve this, we will perform transport modelling, where the effects of spatial development vs. transport system structures upon travel choices will be simulated.

The transport model will be integrated with a state-of-the-art model to estimate air pollutant and GHGs emissions to provide insights on the relationship between urban planning and environmental sustainability across the case-studies.

The LUTEm analysis will reveal co-beneficial interventions and measures to mitigate the negative urban sprawl consequences for traffic emissions, discussed then with city policymakers and stakeholders.

Project

The GeenZone project aims to i) strengthen the resilience in the schools to the negative effects of climate change; ii) raise students and teachers' awareness of climate change; and iii) reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the local community level. To do so, the project will implement various nature-based solutions (NBS) in two schools and one public space in the city of Kozienice, including:

1. Construction of permeable ground surfaces for water retention and managing rainwater
2. Implementing green walls, planting appropriate non-invasive plants and fruit trees
3. Building eco-educational space
4. Developing educational paths and didactic gardens
5. Creating eco-gardens, building houses for animals

In addition, various educational and awareness raising activities will be carried out, including:

1. Awareness raising campaigns via various social media towards public
2. Activation of the schools and local communities through direct engagement in the implementation of the NBS
3. Training and educational activities towards schools’ teachers and students

Project

Climate change is manifested through rising sea levels, heat waves, forest fires, droughts, floods and increasing temperatures. They all affect ecosystems and biodiversity, as well as economic growth, infrastructure, and quality of life. There is an urgent need to reduce emissions as reflected in the 2015 Paris Agreement and the EU’s 2030 Climate and Energy Framework.

The Green Zulawy project aims to improve energy efficiency of school buildings, reduce CO₂ emissions, increase the share of energy generated from renewable energy sources, and raise the energy efficiency awareness of the inhabitants.

To do so, the following key tasks are planned:

• Stakeholders mapping, engagement, and co-creation workshops
• Capacity building, training and knowledge sharing on solutions including nature-bases solutions for improving energy efficiency
• Awareness raising and education activities towards schoolchildren and teachers
• Thermal modernisation in three Primary Schools
• Lab and field study tours – nature-based solutions and renewable energy facilities in Norway
• Analysis of project impact on society

Project leader:

Ms Anna Uzdowska, Head of the Development Department, Gmina Nowy Staw

Project

“Grow your own food in the corridor of your building, reduce GHG (greenhouse gas) emission, the waste of food and energy and transportation costs! Improve your physical health by changing your eating habits and engage with your neighbours!”

The main goal of SmartFood project (https://smartfood.city/) is to provide a novel evidence-based socio-technological framework of sustainable food production and consumption towards the sustainable smart city of the future by engaging micro-local communities through novel in-house food self-production and households’ behavioural change of diet, for the purpose of improving health outcomes and reducing GHG emissions, waste of energy, improved social inclusion and greater citizen awareness.

SmartFood integrates state of the art interdisciplinary research of urban food consumption and production, with a novel approach to co-creation of insect- and vege-based, nutritious foods, without using any soil or land, while exploiting the locally available rainwater and solar energy for all year long sustainable and safe food production in corridors of urban blocks of flats.

SmartFood aims to make a significant contribution towards fulfilling the long-term vision of cities of the future, where switching to sustainable food consumption and production patterns increases healthy eating habits, reduces reliance on food retailing, reduces food waste and strengthens communal connection in urban buildings.

As outcome of these activities, home food production reduces environmental footprint by lowering greenhouse gas emissions for food production and transportation. Relative to the prior work on reduction of food waste and sustainable community development that primarily rely on self-reported survey measures which have low predictive reliability, we use state of the art controlled experiment that implements actual sustainable food self-production facilities and measures real environmental, behavioral and attitudinal outcomes and therefore provides evidence-based policy recommendations.

Project

The goal of i-CLARE is to design and produce the electrochemical water treatment system, with implemented artificial intelligence procedures dedicated to identifying and learn the most efficient operating parameters to remove of a given mixture of organic contaminants.

Project

HAPADS is an ambitious project that will custom design and build a novel air mobile monitoring system (devices, data acquisition, analysis, and user interface), which will enable end-users (drivers, transport companies, municipalities, and the at-large public) to make information-driven decisions to mitigate air pollution exposure. The project aims to develop:

• detector design (microwave-based NO2 sensor and time-delay-integration (TDI) image-based particulate matter (PM) sensor)
• programmable multiprocessor hardware for data acquisition and signal processing with parallel edge computing and deep learning algorithms support.

embedded software for calibration and optimization of sensors.