Integrating subsurface environmental data and knowledge into city planning

There is increasing recognition that cities need to take greater account, and make more effective use of the subsurface on which they stand, in order for future cities to be sustainable and more resilient. However, city planning worldwide remains largely 2D, and there is a long-held fundamental knowledge and communication gap between subsurface environmental specialists and city planners. The consequences are far-reaching: across Europe, poor understanding of ground conditions is recognised as the largest single cause of construction project delay and overspends.
The recent step by Glasgow City Council (GCC) - the UKs second largest unified local authority - to action the development of the UK's first statutory urban subsurface planning guidance, and a wholly new volumetric (3D) planning approach, presents a pivotal opportunity in the UK to begin to transform the knowledge gap between NERC subsurface environmental experts and city planners and decision makers. The key commitment of a NERC KE Fellow will provide the crucial geoscience support required to bring this to meaningful fruition, and enable its replication elsewhere.
The NERC Fellowship would work to marry the needs of UK city planning and urban environmental management, to NERC urban subsurface data and knowledge. This will enable improved understanding and management of the urban subsurface environment directly in line with NERC strategy for sustainable cities. The key objectives would be to: (1) assist GCC in developing the UK's first statutory urban subsurface planning guidance, embedding NERC subsurface environmental data and knowledge within this, and develop a wholly new 3D planning mechanism; (3) build on previous pilot KE activities to develop a new centralised NERC dataset of accessible, validated and standardised digital shallow subsurface data - a key requirement for NERC to be able to deliver relevant 3D subsurface environmental models to support urban planning and environmental management, in line with NERC strategy; and (3) embed UK as best practice example of subsurface data and knowledge exchange, in Europe, and further afield, through the European COST (Sub-Urban) Action.

The work will involve significant KE activities with a wide range of subsurface specialists, urban planners in local and national government, and public and private stakeholders involved in generating, or using, subsurface environmental data. Through facilitating roundtable meetings and workshops the NERC KE Fellow will build on existing pilot KE activities to: transform the relationship between specialists, identifying and developing new and effective KE pathways; and, identify key gaps in data and technical capabilities. The KE Fellow will co-ordinate, transfer and up-scale the KE pathways from the Glasgow conurbation, to Scotland, and to pilot cities within the rest of the UK, through larger workshops and network meetings. A key part will be to develop existing and new stakeholder partnerships, as well as linking to the activities of the UK Future Cities demonstrator and Super City projects where appropriate, to ensure large urban environmental datasets are integrated to city planning. Linking to activities within other so-called 'Super Cities' of Cardiff, Bristol and Newport, and also cities of Manchester, York and London where BGS have existing subsurface urban models or knowledge and effective local authority partnerships, will form other key foci.
The KE fellow will act as a translator within key meetings between local and national government and planning authorities to communicate the importance of subsurface resources to sustainable urban development and the need for new 3D planning approaches.