This fellowship will develop a new generation of analysis and decision making tools required for engineers to respond to the challenges of intensifying global change. Consumption of energy and other resources is widely acknowledged to be unsustainable at today's rates. The world is therefore faced with the challenge of designing and implementing the transition to a more sustainable situation, a state in which greenhouse gas emissions and resource consumption (e.g. energy, water, materials) are drastically reduced and our society is well adapted to the impacts of climate change. Infrastructure systems such as water, energy, transportation and waste are the array of physical assets (and associated processes) responsible for moving the goods and services that ensure the safety, health and wealth of cities and their inhabitants. Thus, design and management of infrastructure has implications in terms of vulnerability and resource consumption (e.g. denser cities use less energy per capita on private transport, but can aggravate flooding and heat stress). However, effective management of infrastructure systems is challenging because they (a) vary in space, (b) are highly interconnected, (c) interact strongly with an ever-changing environment and population, and, (d) deteriorate with age. Nowhere is this more evident than cities, where over half the global population live and more than three quarters of global resources are consumed. As cities adapt in response to global pressures such as climate change, it is crucial to understand the implications of these adaptations in terms of resource requirements to avoid confounding parallel sustainability initiatives. Whilst the vulnerability of the built environment to climate impacts is to some extent understood, resource flows, such as energy, waste and water within cities are currently poorly-understood and are generally considered in terms of gross inputs and outputs to the urban area. The relationship between urban form, function and these resource flows has only been established from observational evidence e.g. relating population density directly to total transport energy demand. This provides insufficient evidence to appraise, plan and design specific adaptations as it does not account for crucial properties of the urban system such as land use, human activity, or the topology and attributes of the infrastructure systems that mediate this, and other, relationships (for example, land use and flood risk). To plan and design adaptations in urban areas requires a capacity to analyse the behaviour of whole cities over timescales of decades, to simulate and test the effectiveness of alternative management options and to monitor and modify the system performance. The capacity to adequately understand and model processes of change within the coupled technological, human and natural systems that comprise cities does not yet exist. This fellowship will address this priority area, through the development of a novel coupled systems simulation model of urban dynamics, climate impacts and resource flows within cities. This systems integrated assessment model will be used to analyse the relationship between the spatial configuration of cities and their infrastructure systems, resource consumption and vulnerability to climate change impacts. Working closely with key stakeholders in industry and local government I shall develop, demonstrate and apply decision analysis methods to show how long term planning strategies can be developed for re-engineering cities from their 'traditional' form into more sustainable configurations.In doing this, I shall provide the evidence to underpin more sustainable engineering and policy decisions and reduce the harmful impacts of unmitigated global change in urban areas.

Globally, national infrastructure is facing significant challenges: - Ageing assets: Much of the UK's existing infrastructure is old and no longer fit for purpose. In its State of the Nation Infrastructure 2014 report the Institution of Civil Engineers stated that none of the sectors analysed were "fit for the future" and only one sector was "adequate for now". The need to future-proof existing and new infrastructure is of paramount importance and has become a constant theme in industry documents, seminars, workshops and discussions. - Increased loading: Existing infrastructure is challenged by the need to increase load and usage - be that number of passengers carried, numbers of vehicles or volume of water used - and the requirement to maintain the existing infrastructure while operating at current capacity. - Changing climate: projections for increasing numbers and severity of extreme weather events mean that our infrastructure will need to be more resilient in the future. These challenges require innovation to address them. However, in the infrastructure and construction industries tight operating margins, industry segmentation and strong emphasis on safety and reliability create barriers to introducing innovation into industry practice. CSIC is an Innovation and Knowledge Centre funded by EPSRC and Innovate UK to help address this market failure, by translating world leading research into industry implementation, working with more than 40 industry partners to develop, trial, provide and deliver high-quality, low cost, accurate sensor technologies and predictive tools which enable new ways of monitoring how infrastructure behaves during construction and asset operation, providing a whole-life approach to achieving sustainability in an integrated way. It provides training and access for industry to source, develop and deliver these new approaches to stimulate business and encourage economic growth, improving the management of the nation's infrastructure and construction industry. Our collaborative approach, bringing together leaders from industry and academia, accelerates the commercial development of emerging technologies, and promotes knowledge transfer and industry implementation to shape the future of infrastructure. Phase 2 funding will enable CSIC to address specific challenges remaining to implementation of smart infrastructure solutions. Over the next five years, to overcome these barriers and create a self-sustaining market in smart infrastructure, CSIC along with an expanded group of industry and academic partners will: - Create the complete, innovative solutions that the sector needs by integrating the components of smart infrastructure into systems approaches, bringing together sensor data and asset management decisions to improve whole life management of assets and city scale infrastructure planning; spin-in technology where necessary, to allow demonstration of smart technology in an integrated manner. - Continue to build industry confidence by working closely with partners to demonstrate and deploy new smart infrastructure solutions on live infrastructure projects. Develop projects on behalf of industry using seed-funds to fund hardware and consumables, and demonstrate capability. - Generate a compelling business case for smart infrastructure solutions together with asset owners and government organisations based on combining smarter information with whole life value models for infrastructure assets. Focus on value-driven messaging around the whole system business case for why smart infrastructure is the future, and will strive to turn today's intangibles into business drivers for the future. - Facilitate the development and expansion of the supply chain through extending our network of partners in new areas, knowledge transfer, smart infrastructure standards and influencing policy.

Today, many advanced countries are positioning themselves to have Sustainable Development (SD) at the heart of their developmental policies. Applying SD principals to a large community or perhaps a city is to be commended. In China, the development of such a city is becoming a reality and an integrated master planning for the world's first sustainable city / Dongtan - was launched recently. Dongtan is situated on Chongming Island, the third largest island in China, near Shanghai at the mouth of the Yangtze River. The island currently consists of a large area of mostly agricultural land. The Shanghai Municipal Government is planning to turn Chongming Island into an eco-island, and Dongtan as a model eco-friendly area. At three quarters the size of Manhattan, Dongtan will be developed on 630 hectares of land as a sustainable city to attract a range of commercial and leisure investments. A programme to develop such a sustainable city presents an unsurpassed opportunity to study and capture all aspects of the development including: the consultation, planning and design stages and the implementation phases of such a project. A recent workshop (Nov 2006) organised by EPSRC, Arup and their Chinese partners has resulted in the formation of specific networks that aim to begin research studies, information capture processes and establish appropriate research programmes that will achieve the most sustainable approaches for the Dongtan eco city development. The three networks which aim to learn from the Dongtan experience, allow and facilitate knowledge networking between Chinese and UK collaborators are as follows: (a) City History and Multi-scale Spatial Master-planning, (b) Network to Investigate Sustainable Economic and Ecological models of Peripheral Urban and (c) Sustainable Urban Systems to Transfer Achievable Implementation Network Resources and Infrastructure Systems Development. In addition to the networks, the workshop also established a Coordination Framework which is independent of the four networks. The main purpose of the coordinating framework is to draw and tie the identified networks together. This proposal deals mainly with the establishment of the coordinating framework group , the objectives and activities of the framework and its funding profile.

There is irrefutable evidence that the climate is changing. There also is strong evidence that this is largely a result of human activity, driven by our insatiable consumption of resources, growing populations, unsustainable migration patterns and rapid overdevelopment in cities that are resulting in heavy ecosystem services losses. Humankind's solutions to these problems do not always work, as many rely upon quantities of resources that simply do not exist or that could not support the rate of change that we are facing, behaviour changes that sit uneasily with our current consumption patterns and quality of life aspirations, and government policies that emphasise long-term sustainable gain but potential short-term economic loss for businesses and local people. A radical revisioning of the problem is needed, not only to reverse current trends, but also to contribute positively to the sustainability and wellbeing of the planet, now and in the future. This proposal is that radical new vision, adopting a 'whole of government' focus to the changes needed in the ways that societies live, work, play and consume, balancing social aspirations against the necessary changes, and using CO2 emissions as a proxy measurement for the harm being done to the planet and the resources (particularly energy) that we use. Through the development of a city analysis methodology; engineering design criteria for quality of life and wellbeing; engineering design criteria for low carbon pathways and; radical engineering approaches, strategies and visioning-all generated in a multidisciplinary context-we aim to deliver a range of engineering solutions that are effective in sustaining civilised life, in an affordable and socially acceptable style. Our vision is to transform the engineering of cities to deliver societal and planetary wellbeing within the context of low carbon living and resource security. We seek to prove that an alternative future with drastically reduced CO2 emissions is achievable in a socially acceptable manner, and to develop realistic and radical engineering solutions to achieve it. Certain techno-fixes for a low-carbon society have been known for some time (e.g., installing low energy appliances in homes), but are not always deemed successful, in part because they have not been deemed socially acceptable. Current aspirations for material consumption are driven by social factors and reinforced by social norms, yet recent research shows that meeting these aspirations often does not enhance wellbeing. Thus, the challenge the research community faces is to co-evolve the techno-fixes with people's aspirations, incorporating radical engineering strategies within the financial, policy/regulation and technical contexts, to re-define an alternative future. A roadmap is required to chart the path from here to there, identify potential tipping points and determine how to integrate radical engineering strategies into norms. However, this roadmap can only be considered once that alternative future has been established, and a 'back-casting' exercise carried out, to explore where the major barriers to change lie and where interventions are needed. Our ambition is to create an holistic, integrated, truly multidisciplinary city analysis methodology that uniquely combines engineered solutions and quality-of-life indicators, accounts for social aspirations, is founded on an evidence base of trials of radical interventions in cities, and delivers the radical engineering solutions necessary to achieve our vision. We seek to achieve this ambition by using a variety of innovative and traditional approaches and methods to undertake five research challenges, which are outlined in detail in five technical annexes.

The research will investigate the feasibility of extracting energy from low velocity (< 2 m/s) tidal flows, using the UK waters as a case study. Existing research and commercial developments have focused on the energy extraction from high velocity flows (> 2 m/s), given the priority has been to optimise the potential renewable energy. However there are numerous issues associated with the associated technologies relating to the operation, reliability, maintenance and survivability of turbines in these high energy flows. Consequently, there is now a need to consider the potential energy from low velocity tidal currents, where some of these issues will not be so paramount and the resulting energy costs make this option economically attractive. Given the different tidal conditions, it is imperative that a feasibility study is first undertaken to analyse the environmental conditions and determine the design parametrics required for a tidal stream turbine to operate in such low velocity flows. The study will therefore provide information to the tidal turbine developers on the design requirements for a low velocity tidal stream turbine, including the blade geometry and the drive train system as well as a Levelised Cost of Electricity (LCOE) evaluation for comparison with existing technologies.