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Cities Research Institute Newsletter
Issue 1 - July 2021
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A Message from the Director
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Dear Colleagues
As we learn to live with (if not love) the changing impacts of the COVID pandemic, the consequences for cities and urban life are becoming clearer. For some, but certainly not all of us, patterns of work have changed and may never return to what we used to call normal. The crisis of housing affordability has deepened and spread, with the sale price of most types of houses rising and rents increasing as well. While the geography of these changes is uneven, we should not be surprised as uneven development in its various manifestations has always been a characteristic of cities in Australia and elsewhere. And this unevenness extends to how we experience the disruptions and changes driven by COVID. We may be all in this together, but we are certainly not equally placed to cope or thrive and some of the most vulnerable members of society have suffered most, while some of the most privileged have bolstered their position, sometimes with assistance from the public purse.
In all of this, members of the CRI have continued to carry out a wide range of topical and excellent research, some of which has focused explicitly on the impacts of COVID and on possible policy responses. Of course, we too have faced disruptions: fieldwork in other countries and even interstate has not always been possible; support for research from partners in industry and government has been more difficult to secure as budgets have been refocused; and many researchers have had to spend more of their time teaching as part of university recovery programs. But, we continue to publish and promote our work, attend online workshops and conferences and build research partnerships and collaborations in the virtual world when we cannot meet face to face. Our carbon footprints have probably decreased as we fly less – I for one haven’t flown for almost a year now and don’t know when I next will get on a plane.
This newsletter shares with you some of our achievements and plans and, as ever, if you would like to talk in more detail about any of our work or explore possibilities for new collaborations, then please don’t hesitate in getting in touch with any of our members or with me directly.
Regards
Paul Burton
Director, Cities Research Institute
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Research Highlights
Green Infrastructure
Dr Ruby Michael, Dr Tony Matthews, Dr Ruwan Fernando, Dr Matthew Webb and Dr Sam Canning were awarded funding to design and build a Green Infrastructure Research Testing Facility. Located on the roof of N44 at our Nathan campus, the facility will enable the investigation of a variety of green infrastructure configurations. The first of its kind internationally to be focused specifically on sub-tropical conditions, it will include free-standing green walls, deep planters (tree boxes), semi-intensive planters and extensive green roof modules. This work is being developed in partnership with the Aria Property Group and supported by a Griffith University Research Infrastructure Award.
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Coastal resilience
Professors Don-Sheng Jeng, Amir Etemad-Shahidi, Hong Zhang and Rodger Tomlinson are collaborating in a bid, led by the University of Melbourne, to establish an ARC Centre of Excellence in in Coupled Hydrodynamics and Integrated Marine Earth Systems (CHIMES). This aims to identify, focus on and resolve the full set of integrated wind-wave-ocean-ice coupled problems across its diverse geographic environments, including the nearshore zone, from the Tropics to polar seas, at forecast (hours to weeks) rather than climate (years to decades) scales.
The coastal resilience team continues to work with Byron Shire Council and the NSW government on headland bypassing processes that have led to recent severe coastal erosion in the town and hope to develop better predictive models of severe and damaging events.
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Gold Coast Futures
Dr Heather Shearer once again ran successfully our annual survey of pedestrian and cycling activity around Gold Coast Light Rail stations, adding to an increasingly valuable dataset on the impact of this valuable piece of local infrastructure.
With Professor Paul Burton, she also led two teams of Griffith planning students, one analysing the walkability and other features of the city’s shopping and service centres as part of the Productive Gold Coast research program of the City Council, and another generating ideas for the future development of the city in conjunction with local consultants, Civity, on behalf of Young Professionals Gold Coast, and published as Great Ideas for the Gold Coast 2021.
Paul Burton is a member of the Steering Committee for the Gold Coast Transport Strategy 2041.
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Resilient infrastructure
Dr Kimberly Reis is leading work on the establishment of local food systems that are resilient in the face of extreme events, focusing at present on the Lockyer Valley and Logan.
Associate Professor Cheryl Desha is leading Griffith’s involvement in a major proposal to develop a Queensland hub for work on emergency management and preparedness, which we hope will be supported by the recently announced body: Natural Hazards Research Australia (NHRA).
Senior Research Fellow, Dr Oz Sahin is working with colleagues from the Capability Systems Centre at UNSW on the development of a strategic system dynamics-based decision tool for the strategic planning of rare earth mining and supply chains.
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Construction innovation
Professor Hong Guan and new CRI member, Associate Professor Benoit Gilbert will shortly start work on a new ARC Discovery project on Innovative composite systems with enhanced resilience to extreme loads, with colleagues from the universities of Melbourne and Wollongong. They are also preparing a new proposal to explore the use of long span timber floors in tall buildings.
Rodney Stewart, Paul Burton, Cheryl Desha and Sacha Reid are part of a multi-disciplinary and multi-university team, led by Professor Charles Sampford that has just started work on a new project looking at inter-professional working in the construction sector, supported by an ARC Linkage grant (LP190101218)
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Sea Cities
Professor Joerg Baumeister is working with colleagues in Wellington University, New Zealand and Diponegoro University in Semarang, Indonesia to conduct a survey of residents of flood exposed neighbourhoods in Jakarta, exploring their attitudes to living on water in response to the impacts of sea level rise.
Professor Baumeister is also working on the design and prototyping of novel offshore fish farming pens, as part of the Blue economy CRC.
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Climate adaptation science
Dr Johanna Nalau is continuing her work as Lead Author Chapter 15, Working Group II, AR6 of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and is working with colleagues in the Australian Rivers Institute to develop further work on an implementation plan associated with a new decision tool for the Murray Darling Basin Authority.
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Transport
The Institute's transport research team is pleased to again be ranked in the top-200 in the world, according to the recently released Academic Ranking of World Universities for the year 2020. Being ranked in the top-200 in the field of transportation science and technology, our team of researchers, PhDs and honours students continues to punch above its weight.
Newly promoted Professor Matthew Burke said "It's a really big achievement for a small team of researchers like ours to keep our world ranking. Our success comes more from the efforts of our early career researchers like Dr Abraham Leung and Dr Kelly Bertolaccini, and our many excellent PhD students. It's also about the support of our industry partners like the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads who give us access to their projects and data and work with our students. That's how we manage to keep achieving."
At the start of February Benjamin Kaufman had his paper - Evaluating Demand Responsive Transit services using a density-based trip rate metric - accepted for publication in the Journal of Transport and Land Use. It explores new ways of measuring the success, or otherwise, of services such as the Logan demand-responsive transit system, which provides public transport services to tens of thousands of households in Brisbane's south. Ben and the team are very grateful for the help of the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads with this research, and hope the new metrics help them with future evaluation of their systems.
Do e-scooters help tourists spread out, visit more sites and spend more? A study on Micromobility and tourist dispersal in Townsville was undertaken by Dr Abraham Leung, A/Prof Matthew Burke, Benjamin Kaufman, Xuna Zhu, Dr Elaine Yang for Neuron E-scooters which were introduced in Townsville in September 2020. Read more on the outcomes here.
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Water and waste
CRI member Dr Ed Morgan and Dr Wade Hadwen of the Australian Rivers Institute have recently published results from their research on local scale stormwater management.
Stormwater management features are increasingly common across cities, as part of a water sensitive urban design approach to improve urban water quality. Some of these engineered features use soils and vegetation to lower the nutrient and sediment content of stormwater to help improve the water quality of urban waterways. These features can also help green the city, providing cooling, natural habitats, and potentially recreational spaces. However, councils need to justify the costs of installing and maintaining these features. Positive public perceptions can encourage their use and support healthier urban waterways, as well as guiding designers to make more acceptable features.
The research, supported by the CRI, studied community perceptions and knowledge of stormwater features in Brisbane suburbs. The work has recently been published in the open access journal, Urban Science, so you can download it for free!
Zamanifard, H.; Morgan, E.A.; Hadwen, W.L. Community Perceptions and Knowledge of Modern Stormwater Treatment Assets. Urban Sci. 2021, 5, 5.
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Conferences and symposia
LOCATE 21 GeoSpatial Conference
The Locate 21 conference was held virtually and in person recently. Associate Professor Cheryl Desha chaired a session on the Sustainable Development Goals. Congratulations also to Cheryl who has been awarded membership to the Surveying and Spatial Sciences Institute (SSSI).
2021 Australian Early Career Urban Research Network (AECURN) Queensland Symposium
The Cities Research Institute co-hosted the 2021 Australian Early Career Urban Research Network (AECURN) Queensland Symposium, held online on the 16th and 17th of February.
The Symposium offered insights on career paths in academia, industry and government from Associate Professor Gemma Read (DECRA Fellow), Dr Lavinia Poruschi (CSIRO) and Dr Rachael Cole-Hawthorne (Queensland Government) and presentations on a variety of urban issues, including by CRI ECRs and PhD candidates. The second day saw a stimulating presentation on, Health Support for Planet and People: Achievements, Challenges and Optimistic Aspirations by Professor Susan Thompson of the City Wellbeing Program at UNSW, followed by panel session on post-covid recovery with Professor Thompson, Dyan Currie (Chief Planner at Brisbane City Council), and three best paper presenters from day one: Dr Abraham Leung, Dr Anna McKinlay and Dr Ayodeji Adeniyi. The symposium was organised by Dr Silvia Tavares (USC), Dr Ed Morgan (CRI, GU), Dr Joanne Dolley (CRI, GU) and Dr Mimi Tsai (QUT).
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Showcasing art and science at Brisbane's Curiocity festival
CRI's Dr Hassan Karampour formed part of a Griffith multi-disciplinary collaborative team which created the 'world's largest acoustic guitar'. The design, described as “an instrument, a meeting place and a space for contemplation and conversation”, was the brainchild of Queensland Conservatorium lecturer and world-renowned guitarist Karin Schaupp. Hassan, who is a structural engineering expert, said the project was challenging but also very exciting to see it all come together. More on this creative effort can be read here.
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World's largest acoustic guitar |
Brisbane Curiocity Festival 2021 |
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Reaching out beyond the academy via The Conversation
Congratulations to Dr Heather Shearer who is ranked sixth overall at Griffith University for readership of articles published in The Conversation. Her latest piece on tiny houses, written with CRI Director Paul Burton was viewed almost 320,000 times and if you were not one of them, you can see what they wrote here.
Aysin Dedekorkut-Howes, Michael Howes along with CRI adjunct Elnaz Torabi wrote a piece for The Conversation discussing the six dimensions of urban resilience. Read their piece: You need all six pieces of the puzzle to build urban resilience, but too often it's politics that leaves a gap, here.
Assoc Professor Cheryl Desha, Dr Kimberley Reis and Dr Savindi Caldera offered helpful tips to gardeners in What can go in the Compost Bin: tips to help your garden and keep pests away. Get your tips here.
Congratulations to Madison Bland and Benjamin Kaufman of EBE/CRI, and their co-author Dr Abraham Leung, for their article in The Conversation on Why e-bikes can succeed where earlier bike-share schemes failed. Read here.
Elsewhere in the media, Aysin Dedekorkut-Howes spoke to 7 News Gold Coast on flood modelling and how Gold Coast properties are at risk. View what she had to say here.
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Awards and promotions
Many congratulations to the following CRI members who were promoted recently:
Associate Professor Matthew Burke (to Professor)
Dr Edoardo Bertone (to Senior Lecturer)
Dr Jenny Cui (to Senior Lecturer)
Dr Fernanda Helfer (to Senior Lecturer)
Dr Sherif Mostafa (to Senior Lecturer)
Dr Johanna Nalau (to Senior Research Fellow)
Dr Fan Zhang (to Senior Lecturer)
…all richly deserved.
Associate Professor Cara Beal was part of a successful research collaboration that won the 2020 Infrastructure Project Innovation Award (Regional) at the Australian Water Association (Victorian branch) Awards for the Torres Strait Islands Sustainable Water and Wastewater Management Plan. In collaboration with the Torres Strait Island Regional Council and led by Arup, Cara with assistance from two Masters students from the International Water Centre led the delivery of the community-based water demand management component of the Plan, which has the goal of guiding the long-term transformation of the Council’s water business.
We are very pleased to announce that Dr Savindi Caldera (who was recently awarded the Graduate Certificate of University Learning and Teaching) has just started as our new Research Project Development Manager, working in conjunction with the Office for Research to help colleagues prepare grant applications and identify new research partnerships.
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New Books and Publications
Professor Hong Guan's co-authored book has recently been published in electronic and print format. Xinzheng Lu, Tsinghua University, China, Hong Guan, Griffith University, Australia. Earthquake Disaster Simulation of Civil Infrastructures: From Tall Buildings to Urban Areas. Second Edition, ISBN 978-981-15-9531-8, Page 934, Publisher- Springer
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Nalau, J., Verrall, B. 2021 Mapping the evolution and current trends in climate change adaptation science. Climate Risk Management This paper looks at 11,506 peer-reviewed papers on climate change adaptation published during 1978-2020 and identifies key trends and the evolution of the field. A nice finding is that Griffith University ranks 4th globally of all institutions publishing on climate change adaptation. Read Griffith News article here
Torabi, E., A. Dedekorkut-Howes, M. Howes. 2021. A Framework for Using the Concept of Urban Resilience in Responding to Climate-Related Disasters. Urban Research & Practice
Dedekorkut-Howes, A., E. Torabi, M. Howes. 2020. Planning for a Different Kind of Sea Change: Lessons from Australia for Sea Level Rise and Coastal Flooding. Climate Policy
Vieira, L., S. Serrao-Neumann, M. Howes. 2021. Daring to build fair and sustainable urban food systems: A case study of alternative food networks in Australia. Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems, 45(3), 344-365
J Nalau, E Torabi, N Edwards, M Howes, E Morgan. A critical exploration of adaptation heuristics. Climate Risk Management
Beal, C.D., Dorante, B., Pearson, P., Aldirawi, S., Abdallah, N. (2020) Working with community and council to trial water demand management strategies in the Torres Straits: the Kirirri story. Water e-Journal, Vol 5 No 4 2020
Beal C.D., Fam D. & Clegg S (2020), Over-promising and under-delivering: institutional and social networks influencing the emergence of urine diversion systems in Queensland, Australia in (eds) Fam D. & O’Rourke M. (2020), Interdisciplinary and Transdisciplinary ‘Failures’ as Lessons Learned: A Cautionary Tale, Routledge: UK.
Chao Wang, Fan Zhang, Julian Wang, James K.Doyle, Peter A.Hancock, Cheuk Ming Mak, Shichao Liu. How indoor environmental quality affects occupants’ cognitive functions: A systematic review conducts a detailed manual review of 66 focused studies and co-occurrence analysis of keywords and abstracts of 8133 studies to explore the associations between indoor environmental quality and cognition factors. Science Direct
Yiming Shaoa, JiaqiangLi, Zhiwei Zhoua, Zhenyu Hu, Fan Zhang, Yuanlong Cui, Haojing Chen. The effects of vertical farming on indoor carbon dioxide concentration and fresh air energy consumption in office buildings investigates the effect of vertical farming on indoor CO2 concentration and building ventilating energy consumption. Science Direct
Dr Zhang also presented a paper entitled Indoor air quality in South East Queensland dwellings during 2019-2020 bushfires at the 54th International Conference of the Architectural Science Association (ANZAScA) 2020, online, 26-27 November 2020.
Khatibi, F.S., A. Dedekorkut-Howes, M. Howes, E. Torabi. 2021. Can public awareness, knowledge and engagement improve climate change adaptation policies?. Discover Sustainability 2(18). DOI: 10.1007/s43621-021-00024-z
Boulton, C. A. Dedekorkut-Howes, and J. Byrne. 2021. Governance Factors Shaping Greenspace Provision: From Theory to Practice. Planning Theory and Practice. 22(1): 27-50. DOI: 10.1080/14649357.2021.1879240
Christopher, W. G and Beal, C.D (2021) Developing a best-practice model for delivery of water and wastewater services in informal urban settlements in Dar es Salaam. International Journal of Water Resources Development, in press, March 2021.
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Kungullanji Research Pathways Program
Over summer, the CRI participated in Griffith University’s Kungullanji Research Pathways Program. An initiative of the Indigenous Research Unit, Kungullanji (meaning ‘to think’ in Yugambeh) creates opportunities for Indigenous undergraduates to participate in supervised research.
Over 12 weeks, Kungullanji candidate, Ms Bianca Crisp (Wiradjuri & 3rd year Health Sciences) worked under the supervision of Assoc Professor Cara Beal and PhD Candidate, Mr Greg Kitson (Wakka Wakka) on a research project entitled ‘Indigenous Cultural Competency in Research’. Bianca carried out a review of the implementation of Indigenous Cultural Competency (ICC) within research practices to identify opportunities for improvements and contribute to overall advances in ICC knowledge and practice in research.
The program concludes each year with the Kungallanji Indigenous Research Conference. Along with Cara, Greg and Bianca, this year’s conference was attended by CRI Director, Professor Paul Burton and Bianca’s mother where each participant made a short presentation, Pecha-Kucha style (20 slides, 20 seconds per slide) about their research. You can find out more about Kungullanji here.
L to R: Ass Prof Cara Beal, Ms Bianca Crisp, Mr Greg Kitson, Prof Paul Burton
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Prosper Korah submitted his PhD thesis for examination in February and his Doctorate was conferred in late May. In January, 2021, Prosper was selected as a World Bank Africa Fellow, a prestigious and highly competitive Fellowship that targets recent PhD graduates under the age of 32. As a Fellow, Prosper is working with the Bank's Urban, Resilience and Land Global Practice as a consultant supporting projects in West and Central Africa. Out of over 3000 applicants, 123 were shortlisted and 31 Fellows were selected. Many congratulations to Prosper!
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Melissa Jackson submitted her PhD entitled "Transformative Community Water Governance in Remote Australian Indigenous Communities" for examination and Mark Bailey is currently revising his thesis as part of the examination process.
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Congratulations also to Simone Heilgeist, the lead author with Ryo Sekine, Oz Sahin, and Rodney Stewart of Finding Nano: Challenges Involved in Monitoring the Presence and Fate of Engineered Titanium Dioxide Nanoparticles, published in Aquatic Environments, (https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/13/5/734)
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Despina Linaraki has recently published two chapters in a collection on Sea Cities, edited by Joerg Baumeister, Edoardo Bertone and Paul Burton.
Lo-TEK: Underwater and Intertidal Nature-Based Technologies by Julia Watson, Despina Linaraki and Avery Robertson. DOI: 10.1007/978-981-15-8748-1_4.
This chapter considers the underwater and intertidal nature-based technologies of indigenous cultures and how these might help address the impacts of climate change in low-lying coastal areas. Indigenous people have been living with and developing water-responsive infrastructures for generations and this traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) can work symbiotically with, rather than against nature, ushering in a more comprehensive approach to underwater and intertidal design.
A Comparison Between Alternative Relocation Options for the Pacific Islands Based on a Human-Centred Approach by Despina Linaraki, DOI: 10.1007/978-981-15-8748-1_10
Extreme weather conditions, rising sea levels, and floods will make some low-lying Pacific Islands uninhabitable by 2050. More frequent floods affect food production and freshwater availability, enhance shoreline erosion, and cause the destruction of the coastal infrastructure. Current adaptation strategies require a considerable amount of funds, materials, technological, and human resources and this chapter explores different approaches to relocation as an adaptation measure.
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Pirooz Pazouki, a PhD candidate in the School of Engineering and Built Environment is carrying out novel research to create advanced urban water treatment infrastructure for potable and agricultural purposes. Working in collaboration with SEQ water and City of Gold Coast, Pirooz’s research investigates the economic, environmental, health and water quality impacts of integrating seawater and water reuse and two papers have been published recently:
P. Pazouki, H.R. Lu, A.E. Hanandeh, W. Biswas, E. Bertone, F. Helfer, R.A. Stewart: Comparative environmental life cycle assessment of alternative osmotic and mixing dilution desalination system configurations, 2021, Desalination journal
P. Pazouki, R.A. Stewart, E. Bertone, F. Helfer, N. Ghaffour: Life cycle cost of dilution desalination in off-grid locations: A study of water reuse integrated with seawater desalination technology, 2020, Desalination journal.
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Transport PhD student Yiping Yan won a "Best Poster Prize" at the World Transport Convention 2021, one of the world's largest transport conferences, held in June this year in Xi'an, China. Yiping's prize-winning paper and poster presentation was on market segmentation of travel markets, undertaken with data and support from the Transport Analysis Unit (TAU) of the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads. Her research should help improve the Brisbane Strategic Travel Demand Model as her PhD progresses. Thankfully, Yiping has just returned to Australia and will be embedded with the TAU again in the near future. Griffith is especially grateful to Jaco Van Den Berg and his team for their assistance, and to Prof Pan Haixiao of Tongji University, Shanghai, for hosting Yiping within his research lab during the pandemic.
Yiping Yan 2nd from left
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