Pollutants in the Urban Environment (PUrE) - Main Study

There is a need to assess the sustainability of urban activities, and for a more holistic approach to the evaluation and management of urban pollution. The current practices are seldom well integrated, and are often media-specific. New initiatives are required to address the linkages between different environmental media, and deal more effectively with diffuse pollution arising from a range of urban activities.The PUrE research project will consider the 'urban environment' as an integrated system, and will address the environmental, economic and health implications of multiple forms of pollution. The aim of the PUrE project is to develop an integrated assessment framework that will fulfil three criticaltasks:1. mapping the flow of pollutants associated with human activities;2. modelling the fate and transport of chemicals in the environment; and3. understanding the impacts of urban pollution on human and ecological health.The PUrE approach can be envisaged as a decision-support framework which provides a useful suite of models and tools, linked to a variety of GIS enabled datasets, to help end-users (regulators, industry, researchers) to conduct assessments, ranging from simple screening studies, to detailed modelling of different urban scenarios and prediction of possible impacts of urban pollution.This new framework would provide a more effective means to: examine the effects of diffuse pollution; assess the implications of new policy measures; evaluate the sustainability of changes to products or processes; and understand the behaviour of key pollutants in the urban environment.