Explanipedia

A National Assessment of Natural Flood Management and Its Contribution to Fluvial Flood Risk Reduction Open

Paul Sayers, Stephen Birkinshaw, Sam T. Carr, Yi He, Lucy K. Lewis , et al. · 2025

The desire to promote Natural Flood Management (NFM) has not yet been matched by implementation. In part, this reflects the lack of scientific evidence regarding the ability of NFM measures to contribute to risk reduction at the national s…

Identification of plausible low traffic neighbourhoods using open data Open

C. Larkin, Craig Robson, Alistair Ford · 2025

Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) form an important component of urban active travel infrastructure and policy in the United Kingdom. These zones aim to prioritise street space for cycling and walking by reducing motorised traffic within t…

Digital Twin for resilience and sustainability assessment of port facility Open

Mingyu Zhu, Carlos Calderón, Alistair Ford, Craig Robson, Jiayi Jin · 2025

This paper addresses key gaps in Digital Twin research for port operations. It first develops an integrated Digital Twin model for dry bulk terminals, focusing on biomass handling, an area largely overlooked in existing studies. Second, it…

An open framework for analysing future flood risk in urban areas Open

Olivia Butters, Craig Robson, Fergus McClean, Vassilis Glenis, James Virgo , et al. · 2024

A Coupled CA Urban Development Model (UDM) and Urban Fabric Generator (UFG) for the Assessment of Climate Hazards on Future Urban Development Open

Stuart Barr, Alistair Ford, Vassilis Glenis, Craig Robson, Olivia Butters , et al. · 2024

Cellular Automata (CA) spatial models have become a de facto means by which to simulate future scenarios of land use activity, particularly urban development. Increasingly, such models are being employed within large scale climate impact, …

A 3D agent-based model for simulating urban densification in Toronto, Canada Open

Richard Burke, Raja Sengupta, Alistair Ford · 2024

The use of land parcel data, 3D visualisation and urban theories offers a significant opportunity for advancing simulations of urban densification. This paper presents a 3D agent-based model (ABM) to explore future urban densification dyna…

A MATSim model methodology to generate cycling-focused transport scenarios in England Open

David Alvarez Castro, Alistair Ford, Philip James, Roberto Palacín, Dominik Ziemke · 2024

Climate change is considered the most pressing environmental challenge of our time, being transport one of the major contributors. Consequently, transport models are required to test different urban mobility policies that can shift travel …

A new launch pad failure mode: Analysis of fine particles from the launch of the first Starship orbital test flight Open

Brandon Dotson, Philip T. Metzger, Jason H. Hafner, Aaron K. Shackelford, Kira R. Birkenfeld , et al. · 2024

This study examines the characteristics, composition, and origin of fine particle debris samples collected following the launch of the first Starship orbital test flight, which suggests a new launch pad failure mode previously unknown. Par…

Asssessing the impacts of extreme rainfall on urban transport: a complex systems approach Open

Alistair Ford, Yimeng Liu, Richard Dawson, Saini Yang · 2024

Extreme rainfall causes disruption and damage to urban transport networks through flooding, resulting in economic impacts for residents and businesses. The impact of such extreme weather events is the result of a complex interaction betwee…

Flood Impact on Urban Transport Networks Considering the Flooding Propagation Open

Yimeng Liu, Alistair Ford, Richard Dawson, Katya Pyatkova, Jiting Tang , et al. · 2024

What Has Been Learned About Converting Climate Hazard Data to Climate Risk Information? Open

Dan Bernie, Freya Garry, Katie Jenkins, Nigel W. Arnell, Laura Dawkins , et al. · 2023

Understanding climate risks requires consideration of the hazard, vulnerability and exposure. The understanding and quantification of climate vulnerabilities is central to developing valuable assessments of future risks, with close communi…

Accessibility for whom? Applying a data-driven approach to calculate activity-based accessibility metrics Open

Clara Peiret-Garcı́a, Rachel S. Franklin, Alistair Ford, Joe Matthews · 2023

Providing equitable and more sustainable access to basic amenities is key to cutting carbon emissions and increasing social equity in cities. This paper applies a data-driven approach to generate an activity-based accessibility index for B…

Flood Impact to Urban Transport Networks Considering the Flooding Propagation Open

Yimeng Liu, Saini Yang, Richard Dawson, Alistair Ford, Jiting Tang · 2023

The urban transport network is threatened by urbanisation and climate change-enhanced urban flood, leading to substantial impacts on economic activities, social well-being and the environment. By taking the flood propagation process into c…

Enhanced Urban Growth Modelling by Coupling Regional Development Heterogeneity and Noise Reduction in a Cellular Automata Model: A Case Study in Zhengzhou, China Open

Xuanchi Chen, Zongmin Wang, Haibo Yang, Alistair Ford, Richard Dawson · 2023

Flood Impact on Urban Transport Networks Considering the Flooding Propagation Open

Yimeng Liu, Alistair Ford, Richard Dawson, Katya Pyatkova, Jiting Tang , et al. · 2023

LAYERS: A Decision-Support Tool to Illustrate and Assess the Supply and Value Chain for the Energy Transition Open

Oliver Heidrich, Alistair Ford, Richard Dawson, David A.C. Manning, Eugene Mohareb , et al. · 2022

Climate change mitigation strategies are developed at international, national, and local authority levels. Technological solutions such as renewable energies (RE) and electric vehicles (EV) have geographically widespread knock-on effects o…

A spatially explicit framework for future climate change risk assessments Open

Craig Robson, Alistair Ford, Fergus McClean, Robert Nichols · 2022

Climate emergencies have been declared across the UK and the world, both by local and national governments and by businesses, demonstrating the growing urgency to address the causes and impacts of climate change on societies and economies.…

A geospatial modelling approach to assess flood risk under future scenarios of urban form Open

Richard. Burke, Jin Xing, Alistair Ford, Richard Dawson · 2022

Simulations of future urban form (road networks, land use type, building density and building type) are needed to provide greater clarity into future urban flooding dynamics. This paper proposes a novel geospatial approach involving advanc…

Implementation of socio-demographic attributes into SPENSER, a synthetic population tool Open

David Alvarez Castro, Alistair Ford · 2022

A synthetic population is the representation of actual or future population when data about every individual is not available. It contains each individual’s characteristics (e.g., age, sex) that are obtained from census and survey datasets…

An Open‐Source Model for Projecting Small Area Demographic and Land‐Use Change Open

Nik Lomax, Andrew Smith, Luke Archer, Alistair Ford, James Virgo · 2022

The size, composition, and spatial distribution of both people and households have a substantial impact on the demand for and development and delivery of infrastructure required to support the population. Infrastructure encompasses a wide …

Identifying adaptation ‘on the ground’: Development of a UK adaptation Inventory Open

Katie Jenkins, Alistair Ford, Craig Robson, Robert J. Nicholls · 2022

Adaptation plays a crucial role in managing the unavoidable risks from climate change. The UK is considered to be at the forefront of national adaptation planning. However, the extent to which plans and programmes translate into tangible r…

How do decision makers interact with geospatial data? An eye tracking study Open

Jess Hepburn, David Fairbairn, Philip James, Alistair Ford · 2021

Glassboxing Deep Learning to Enhance Aircraft Detection from SAR Imagery Open

Ru Luo, Xing Jin, Lifu Chen, Zhouhao Pan, Xingmin Cai , et al. · 2021

Although deep learning has achieved great success in aircraft detection from SAR imagery, its blackbox behavior has been criticized for low comprehensibility and interpretability. Such challenges have impeded the trustworthiness and wide a…

The structure and behaviour of hierarchical infrastructure networks Open

Craig Robson, Stuart Barr, Alistair Ford, Philip James · 2021

3D Agent-Based Model of Pedestrian Movements for Simulating COVID-19 Transmission in University Students Open

David Alvarez Castro, Alistair Ford · 2021

On the 30 January 2020, the WHO declared a public health emergency of international concern due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Social restrictions with different efficiencies were put in place to avoid transmission. Students l…

3D Agent-Based Model of pedestrian movements for simulating COVID-19 transmission in university students Open

David Alvarez Castro, Alistair Ford · 2021

COVID-19, a new infectious disease, constitutes a threat to humanity due to its easy transmissibility. Measures, such as the use of facemasks, lockdowns and self-isolation, have been put in place to keep the population safe, but their effi…

How safe are our streets for social distancing?: A national scale analysis of pavement space during COVID-19 Open

Craig Robson, Alistair Ford · 2021

Social distancing measures were introduced across the UK in March 2020 as a response to the increasing infection rate of COVID-19. The UK government also issued statutory guidance for local authorities to investigate the potential for real…

Do we need legends? An eye tracking study Open

Jess Hepburn, David Fairbairn, Philip James, Alistair Ford · 2021

Within large engineering consultancies, multidisciplinary projects are common, incorporating large volumes of varied and volatile high dimensionality data, often geospatial in nature. Eye tracking is a method used to assess how individuals…

A multi-scale urban integrated assessment framework for climate change studies: A flooding application Open

Alistair Ford, Stuart Barr, Richard Dawson, James Virgo, Michael Batty , et al. · 2019

In order to assess the potential future impacts of climate change on urban areas, tools to assist decision-makers to understand future patterns of risk are required. This paper presents a modelling framework to allow the downscaling of nat…

Future heat-waves, droughts and floods in 571 European cities Open

Selma B. Guerreiro, Richard Dawson, Chris Kilsby, Elizabeth Lewis, Alistair Ford · 2018

Cities are particularly vulnerable to climate risks due to their agglomeration of people, buildings and infrastructure. Differences in methodology, hazards considered, and climate models used limit the utility and comparability of climate …

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