4M | ARCC

Professor Kevin Lomas, Loughborough University

The research focuses on the city of Leicester:

Domestic Buildings: Investigating the nature of energy use and carbon emissions in homes.
Non-domestic buildings: These include the city’s offices, schools, factories and shops.
Transport: Looking at options for more environmentally-friendly options for transport
Biological sequestration: A study of gardens, parks and other green spaces and how these can be managed to ‘lock in’ CO₂.

The project will calculate the carbon footprint of Leicester by:

Measuring the carbon released by traffic and the burning of fossil fuels and the rate at which vegetation captures carbon and lock it in the soil;
Modelling the effects on carbon budget of road layouts, traffic volumes and traffic speeds, the way we use energy in our buildings and the way we look after green spaces;
Mapping the sources and sinks of carbon for the whole city and comparing this with the social and economic well-being of its inhabitants; and
Management studies to investigate how to shrink the city’s carbon footprint.

The work will:

provide a methodology, data sources, models, data collection techniques, analysis methods and validation approaches that can use to benchmark and manage the carbon sources and sinks in any UK city; and
produce ways of representing carbon sources and sinks in a form suitable for visualisation and interpretation by policy makers, local authorities and the general public.

Davies, Z.G., Edmondson, J.L., Heimemeyer, A., Leake, J.R. & Gaston, K.J. (2011) Mapping an urban ecosystem service: quantifying above-ground carbon storage at a city-wide scale. Journal of Applied Ecology. DOI:10.1111/j.1365-2664.2011.02021.x

Edmondson, J.L., Daviesm, Z.G., McCormack, S.A., Gaston, K.J. & Leake, J.R. (2011) Are soils in urban ecosystem compacted? A citywide analysis. Biology Letters. DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2011.0260 – in press.

Renforth, P., Edmondson, J.L., Leake, J.R., Gaston, K.J. & Manning, D.A.C. (2011) Designing a carbon capture function into urban soils. Urban Design and Planning, 164, 121–128.

Gaston, K.J., Davies, Z.G. & Edmondson, J.L. (2010) Urban environments and ecosystem functions. In: Gaston, K.J. (ed), Urban Ecology, pp.35-52. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Kane, T., Firth, S.K., Lomas, K.J., Allinson, D. & Irvine, K.N. (2011). Variation of indoor temperatures and heating practices in UK dwellings, Proceedings of the Research Students Conference on Buildings Don’t Use Energy, People Do Domestic Energy Use and CO2 Emissions in Existing Dwellings, 28 June 2011, Bath, UK.

Kane, T., Firth, S.K., Allinson, D., Irvine, K.N. & Lomas, K.J. (2011) Understanding occupant heating practices in UK dwellings, Proceedings of the World Renewable Energy Congress, Linkoping, Sweden, 8–11 May 2011.

Kane, T., Firth, S.K., Allinson, D., Irvine, K.N. & Lomas, K.J. (2010) Does the age of the residents influence occupant heating practice in UK domestic buildings?, East Midlands Universities Association 2010 Conference – Perspectives in Society: Health, Culture, and the Environment, Nottingham, 14 September 2010.

Firth, S.K., Buswell, R. & Lomas, K.J. (2009) A simple model of PV systems and their integration with building loads, Building Simulation 2009, Glasgow, UK.

Edmondson, J., Davies, Z.G., Leake, J.R. & Gaston, K.J. (2009) Carbon storage in UK urban greenspace – Leicester city as a case study. International Conference on Human Ecology, Manchester, UK.

Edmondson, J., Davies, Z.G., Leake, J.R. & Gaston, K.J. (2009) Carbon sequestration in UK urban greenspace – Leicester city as a case study. British Ecological Society Annual Meeting, Hertfordshire, UK.