Summary

The iSCAPE project advanced the control of air quality and carbon emissions in European cities. It brought together a wide range of stakeholders – including citizens, environmental agencies and policymakers – to co-design nature-based and behavioural solutions to the problem.

This approach had environmental and health impacts by providing evidence on effective air pollution control measures, informing a wide range of guidelines across Europe. It had social impacts by involving citizens and other stakeholders in research activities, raising awareness of air pollution and its impacts. And it had technological impact by developing new low-cost sensors to empower local communities.

Research description

Air pollution is one of society’s greatest challenges, killing around 7 million people every year. 400,000 of these premature deaths are in Europe. Every day, 9 out of 10 people breathe air with high levels of pollutants. Air pollution also contributes to climate change and causes a range of environmental effects, like acid rain, ozone depletion, and damage to crops, forests and wildlife. Addressing this challenge requires a concerted effort across society.

The iSCAPE project, coordinated by Associate Professor Francesco Pilla, was a European research project that worked on advancing the control of air quality and carbon emissions in European cities. It tackled the problem by studying policy interventions, behaviour changes of citizens’ lifestyles, and “Passive Control Systems” (PCSs) — things like trees, hedges and coatings that can affect air pollution without using any power. Crucially, the project pioneered a “co-design” approach, developing solutions with a wide range of stakeholders using a so-called “living lab framework”. This means collaborating with citizens and decision-makers to develop and trial measures in real places. The work was carried out in 6 fully operating European cities, demonstrating the effectiveness of bottom-up approaches compared to more traditional top-down approaches to tackling pollution.

The team looked at different measures in each city:

• Bologna, Italy (trees and photocatalytic coating)
• Bottrop, Germany (urban design and planning)
• Dublin, Ireland (low-boundary walls)
• Guildford, UK (hedges)
• Hasselt, Belgium (behavioural interventions)
• Vantaa, Finland (green roofs and walls)

These studies were enhanced by scientific simulations to evaluate the measures at three different scales: the street, the neighbourhood, and the urban scale. iSCAPE also looked at how successful these measures would be in future climate scenarios, which enabled the team to develop air pollution control strategies that are effective in the short and the medium-long term.

This combination of approaches allowed Dr Pilla and colleagues to produce robust scientific results (over 50 peerreviewed publications) and leverage the support of the wider community (over 100 citizens actively involved in producing the evidence) to influence policymakers to put the findings into practice.

Research impact

Policy impact

Local stakeholders – including decision-makers, environmental agencies, and city administrations – were directly involved in the process of producing guidelines for the measures developed through iSCAPE.

These guidelines include “Using Green Infrastructure to Protect People from Air Pollution”, published by the Mayor of London, and “Implementing Green Infrastructure for Air Pollution Abatement: General Recommendations for Management and Plant Species Selection”. The various guidelines fostered widespread adoption and application of nature-based solutions to tackle local air pollution challenges. iSCAPE also produced 9 actionable policy briefs, and promoted them through the WHO network, to facilitate the uptake of all the other key results of the project.

Environmental impact

Ultimately, these guidelines being adopted around Europe has had multiple benefits in terms of alleviating climate change impacts, increasing biodiversity, enhancing people’s wellbeing, and increasing resilience to flooding and other risks. All the produced results and actionable policy briefs are freely available, ensuring further policies around the world will benefit from the research, and helping additional cities tackle air pollution and climate change.

Social impact

iSCAPE Living Labs brought together a great variety of urban stakeholders, including city representatives, researchers, businesses, and citizens, to solve complex city challenges around air pollution and climate change.

During the course of the project, iSCAPE Living Labs delivered numerous engagement activities, increasing citizen awareness and knowledge of air pollution, its impacts, and how to address it. The events involved a wide range of activities, from creating pop-up green spaces as part of the “wandering trees” initiative in Bottrop, to citizen science workshops with low-cost sensors in all the 6 Living Labs.

One such activity took place in a school, where children codeveloped passive control systems for air pollution using LEGO bricks. This has since been formalised in a framework which will be replicated by the International Red Cross in schools in over 50 Countries in Eurasia.

Technological impact

iSCAPE developed two low-cost sensors to facilitate these activities: a citizen science sensor (Smart Citizen Kits) for grassroot activities with local communities aimed at raising awareness of air pollution, and a more advanced monitoring station to assess the impacts of the piloted interventions. The team developed an online guide to facilitate wider use of the Smart Citizen Kits.

Academic impact

iSCAPE produced several impactful results, advancing the state-of-the-art and significantly contributing to scientific knowledge about the effectiveness of nature-based solutions and behavioural-change initiatives to tackle air pollution and related climate change issues. More than 50 publication have arisen from the project.

A sustainability plan for extending the lifespan and impact of the project was developed to ensure that the Living Lab components – including physical and virtual infrastructure, knowledge, and skills – are sustained beyond the project and continue contributing to local urban innovation activities.