Gordon Mitchell - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Gordon Mitchell

9° Congresso Città e Territorio Virtuale, Roma, 2, 3 e 4 ottobre 2013

It is commonly asserted that so-called compact development is the urban form most able to sustain... more It is commonly asserted that so-called compact development is the urban form most able to sustainably accommodate growth by reducing travel distances and conserving land, but credible supportive evidence remains limited. This study rigorously and realistically tested the relative performance of spatial options over the next 30 years for three distinct kinds of English city regions. Statistical models first forecast the behavior of people within interacting markets for land and transport. These outputs were then fed to established simulation models to generate 26 indicators measuring the economic efficiency, resource use, social and environmental impact of the spatial options. This permitted an explicit comparison of the costs and benefits of compact against sprawling urban forms for these regions. While the prototypes - i.e. Compaction, Market led development (sprawl), Planned expansion (edge expansion and/or new towns) - were indeed found to differ in their sustainability, no one f...

The aim of this research is to determine the process by which runoff draining parts of the UK upl... more The aim of this research is to determine the process by which runoff draining parts of the UK uplands becomes discoloured. Recent increases in colour are perceived as a problem due to the frequency with which EC surface water directives are breached, to the increased cost of meeting standards, to an increase in consumer complaints, and due to the possible deleterious health effects of consuming coloured potable water. The work was conducted over the last four years, largely in the Upper Burn and Nidd valleys, north Yorkshire, and at ...

Edinburgh: Scotland and Northern Ireland Forum for Environmental Research, 2005

The views expressed in this document are not necessarily those of SNIFFER. Its members, servants ... more The views expressed in this document are not necessarily those of SNIFFER. Its members, servants or agents accept no liability whatsoever for any loss or damage arising from the interpretation or use of the information, or reliance upon views contained herein.

Sustainable flood risk management (SFRM) has become popular since the 1980s. Many governmental an... more Sustainable flood risk management (SFRM) has become popular since the 1980s. Many governmental and nongovernmental organisations have been keen on implementing the SFRM strategies by integrating social, ecological and economic themes into their flood risk management (FRM) practices. However, justifications for SFRM are still embryonic and it is not yet clear whether this concept is influencing the current policies in different countries. This paper reviews the past and present flood management approaches and experiences from flood defence to FRM in four developed countries with the aim of highlighting lessons for developing mega deltas. The paper explored recent strategies such as "Making Space for Water, PPS 25, and NPPF" in the UK; "Room for Rivers" in the Netherlands which was promoted to cope with flooding, integrate FRM with ideas on sustainability, and deliver good FRM practice for next generations. The United States has also established a sound National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP), and Japan has developed an advanced flood warning and evacuation contingency system to prepare for climatic extremes. These case studies showed some good lessons to achieve long term SFRM direction to deliver flood management practices with social-economic and environmental concerns. Most of developing coastal megacities especially in Asia are still heavily reliant on traditional hard-engineering approach, that may not be enough

Energy Policy, 2020

Spatial economic change is an energy justice issue (Bouzarovski and Simcock, 2017)-an essential c... more Spatial economic change is an energy justice issue (Bouzarovski and Simcock, 2017)-an essential consideration in how we choose to rewire the economy for a carbon-free future. Nothing like the conscious system-wide change required has been attempted before. Rapid policy decisions risk embedding existing injustices or creating new ones unless steps are taken to ameliorate those risks. We present a model that takes a whole-system view of the UK spatial economy, examining how increasing distance costs (e.g. through fuel tax hikes) have unequal impacts on regions and sectors. The model establishes an important carbon transition policy principle: change in spatial lows of internal trade, which are certain to occur rapidly during transition, have measurable energy justice implications. Peripheral economic regions, in rural and coastal areas and many city outskirts are most vulnerable, as are petrochemical, agricultural and connected sectors. Policy must go beyond identifying places and sectors most affected: it is the connections between them that matter most. The "push" of spatially aware iscal policy needs to be combined with the "pull" of targeted interventions designed to promote lowcarbon intermediate connections. This is not only just, but would help make (potentially costly) transition more politically acceptable.

Proceedings of the Annual Conference of the Air and Waste Management Association, Jun 20, 1999

This paper presents the development and application of TEMMS (Traffic Emission Modelling and Mapp... more This paper presents the development and application of TEMMS (Traffic Emission Modelling and Mapping Suite), a suite of programs for modelling and mapping traffic emission from road networks in urban areas. The first module in the suite is SATURN (Simulation and Assignment of Traffic to Urban Road Networks), a comprehensive traffic assignment model widely used in the UK by Local Authorities for traffic management. Within TEMMS, SATURN is used to calculate traffic flows, speeds, delays and other junction and ...

The UK is now nearing the end of a £6 billion investment programme to comply with the Urban Waste... more The UK is now nearing the end of a £6 billion investment programme to comply with the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive. This will see the end of its CSO problem in terms of both visual and acute water quality problems associated with the immediate impact of urban wet weather discharges. However, the Water Framework Directive will drive improvements in water bodies over the next 20 years. The development of catchment plans requires, amongst others, an assessment of the potential risk of impact from urban wet weather discharges as a source of diffuse pollution. A catchment study has used a water quality modelling approach to assess the apportionment of pollution sources across the catchment and the potential benefits of a range of control measures. The results indicated that urban wet weather discharges can be significant at a local level. This emphasises the need for targeted measures rather than ‘ad hoc’ global measures across a catchment.

Cities

Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern yo... more Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern your use of this document. When citing, please reference the published version. Take down policy While the University of Birmingham exercises care and attention in making items available there are rare occasions when an item has been uploaded in error or has been deemed to be commercially or otherwise sensitive.

Transportation Research Part D: Transport and Environment, 2015

This is a repository copy of Exploring transport carbon futures using population microsimulation ... more This is a repository copy of Exploring transport carbon futures using population microsimulation and travel diaries: Beijing to 2030.

Much of England is seriously water stressed and future droughts will present major challenges to ... more Much of England is seriously water stressed and future droughts will present major challenges to the water industry if socially and economically damaging supply restrictions are to be avoided. Demand management is seen as a key mechanism for alleviating water stress, yet there are no truly effective incentives to encourage widespread adoption of the behavioural and technological demand management practices available. Water pricing could promote conservation, but on its own it is an inefficient tool for dealing with short term restriction in water supply. Raising prices over the short term in response to a drought is likely to be ineffectual in lowering demand sufficiently; conversely, maintaining high prices over the long term implies costs to the consumer which are needlessly high most of the time. We propose a system for developing resilience to drought in highly water stressed areas, based on a cap and trade (C&T) model. The system would represent a significant innovation in E water market. However, international experience shows that C&T is successful in other sectors, and need not be overly complex. Here, we open the debate on how a C&T system might work in England.

Over recent years a body of evidence has grown to suggest that East Asia is experiencing the effe... more Over recent years a body of evidence has grown to suggest that East Asia is experiencing the effects of climate change. Allied to this is that coastal populations and economic assets are becoming more vulnerable to flood hazards. Flood vulnerability has increased owing to the combination of a number of human and physical variables: a) rapid coastal urban growth, b) anthropogenic changes to the environment, such as land subsidence through natural resource extraction or the removal of natural protective barriers, and c) increase in frequency and magnitude of coastal hazards associated with typhoons, storm surges, and sea-level rise. East Asia's population is highly concentrated on low-lying coastal regions and deltaic cities are especially at risk. However, effective adaptation to climate impacts on many coasts is yet to develop. In this chapter, the drivers of coastal vulnerability are reviewed and examined in East Asia, exemplified by the Pearl River Delta (PRD), and its megacities of Guangzhou, Hong Kong and Shenzhen. The population of the PRD is expected to reach 120 million by 2050 and the delta is one of the most important economic centres in East Asia. Flood risk is substantial in the PRD, but flood-risk management appears to suffer from a lack of sufficient strategic planning to prepare for future climate extremes. Drawing on international experience of climate change adaptation and flood risk management, we suggest a path forward to develop adaptation strategies for deltaic and coastal cities in East Asia.

Proceedings of the ICE-Engineering Sustainability, 2011

Civil engineering solutions are routinely responsive to the places where those solutions are goin... more Civil engineering solutions are routinely responsive to the places where those solutions are going to be built and the physical aspects of places are integral to good design. Other characteristics of a place, in particular its social or economic geography, will affect the design, implementation and impact of many civil engineering projects. This paper attempts to summarise, from an early examination of limited literature and by linking to 'types' of civil engineering projects, how people who live in a particular location respond to such ...

Environmental Research Letters, 2015

Air quality in Great Britain has improved in recent years, but not enough to prevent the European... more Air quality in Great Britain has improved in recent years, but not enough to prevent the European Commission (EC) taking legal action for non-compliance with limit values. Air quality is a national public health concern, with disease burden associated with current air quality estimated at 29 000 premature deaths per year due to fine particulates, with a further burden due to NO 2. National smallarea analyses showed that in 2001 poor air quality was much more prevalent in socioeconomically deprived areas. We extend this social distribution of air quality analysis to consider how the distribution changed over the following decade (2001-2011), a period when significant efforts to meet EC air quality directive limits have been made, and air quality has improved. We find air quality improvement is greatest in the least deprived areas, whilst the most deprived areas bear a disproportionate and rising share of declining air quality including non-compliance with air quality standards. We discuss the implications for health inequalities, progress towards environmental justice, and compatibility of social justice and environmental sustainability objectives.

Management of Environmental Quality: An International Journal

Landscape and Urban Planning

Poorer communities tend to be located within lower quality natural environments, experiencing gre... more Poorer communities tend to be located within lower quality natural environments, experiencing greater environmental burdens and fewer environmental amenities. To date, analysis of environmental inequalities has focussed on pollution, with less attention given to natural environment benefits that support human wellbeing. Here, the ecosystem service concept which identifies these benefits, and the natural capital (NC) which provides them, is applied within environmental inequality assessment. For England, 325 local authority districts were classified based on 14 indicators of NC, and the level of deprivation of districts within each class compared. Districts with extensive woodland or agriculture are the least deprived. The most deprived districts tend to be urban areas with lower extent and quality of NC, coastal districts, and rural uplands with extensive coverage of various higher quality NC. These findings demonstrate that the distribution of NC varies by social deprivation, with implications for social inequities and sustainable management of NC. However, whilst higher deprivation is often associated with a lower extent and quality of NC, this pattern is not consistent for all NC types or places. Given the lack of a consistent pattern of inequality nationally, this implies that equitable management of ecosystems should be driven at a local level. To achieve this, the relationship between environmental benefits and deprivation should be assessed at this level and analysis should move beyond NC to address the ecosystem services that flow from it.

Annals of the American Association of Geographers

dents, are distributed at a fine (subdistrict) scale in urban Beijing and investigate the associa... more dents, are distributed at a fine (subdistrict) scale in urban Beijing and investigate the association between hazards, health, and geographical context. A Bayesian spatial multilevel logistic model is developed to account for spatial dependence in unobserved contextual influences (neighborhood effects) on health. The results reveal robust associations between exposure to environmental hazards and health. A unit decrease on a fivepoint Likert scale in exposure is associated with increases of 15.2 percent (air pollution), 17.5 percent (noise), and 9.3 percent (landfills) in the odds of reporting good health, with marginal groups including migrant workers reporting greater exposure. Health inequality is also evident and is associated with age, income, educational attainment, and housing characteristics. Geographical context (neighborhood features like local amenities) also plays a role in shaping the social distribution of health inequality. The results are discussed in the context of developing environmental justice policy within a Chinese social market system that experiences tension between its egalitarian roots and its pragmatic approach to tackling grand public policy challenges.