Project proposal form
Project title: Impact and value of geo-resources underneath cities for resilient urban design
Project code:
Host institution:
University of Warwick
Theme:
Anthropogenic Impact and Environmental Sustainability
Key words: Geo-resources, subsurface, resilience, urban design, urban structure, building sustainability
Supervisory team (including institution & email address):
Jon Coaffee (University of Warwick, Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, J.Coaffee@warwick.ac.uk);
Deodato Tapete (British Geological Survey, Urban Geoscience Team, deodato@bgs.ac.uk);
Stephen Jarvis (University of Warwick, Computer Science, S.A.Jarvis@warwick.ac.uk); Stephanie Bricker
(British Geological Survey, Urban Geoscience Team, step@bgs.ac.uk)
Project Highlights:

Assess the influence of city geo-resources on
urban design

Measure how city and building design maximise
the use of geo-resources to withstand
environmental and anthropogenic pressures

Demonstrate social and economic benefits of
geoscientific-thinking urban design
Overview:
With increasing urbanisation cities are becoming more
reliant on the subsurface and the services it provides
(e.g., in the UK each city-dweller’s typical daily use
amounts to 150-165 litres of freshwater (UK Water
Partnership, 2015) and ~19% of London’s heat
demand may be met from ground heat (London’s Zero
Carbon Energy Resource: Secondary Heat Report
Phase 1. 2013). Urban geo-reources are not always
renewable, frequently interdependent with other city
systems and their stock and demand vary spatially
from site to site.
There are previous research examples on how local
supply of geo-resources influenced the urban
development of past cities (Margottini and
Spizzichino, 2014; Bianca, 2014). However more
research is needed to assess quantitatively how
present and future cities can utilise geo-resources to
be more resilient to urbanisation and environmental
pressures and their interactions (e.g., intense rains in
increasingly sealed urban land cover).
This project therefore aims to answer the following
key research questions:

What metrics can we use to quantify the
resilience of urban design?

How can innovative use of urban geo-resources
complement contemporary urban design?

What social and economic benefits can be
generated to promote the three pillars of
sustainability?
This is an exceptional opportunity to develop a new
‘geoscientific-thinking’ model of urban design which is
still poorly investigated in the academic literature,
especially from a quantitative point of view.
Benefitting from urban geoscience innovation and
core datasets available at British Geological Survey
(BGS) and state-of-the-art research and teaching
facilities of the Resilient Cities Laboratories at the
University of Warwick, the student will define a novel
set of metrics to express quantitatively how
effectively urban designs ‘work with the landscape’
(e.g., Homes and Communities Agency, 2013).
Figure 1: Urban design maximising the benefits of the
geo-resources underneath cities (From ‘Future Visions
for Water and Cities: a thought piece’, the UK Water
Partnership 2015).
The research will be completed in the context of
current future cities initiatives. The findings will be of
immediate interest to practitioners and industry (e.g.,
firms of consulting designers, planners, engineers) and
stakeholders (e.g., Future Cities Catapult, city
councils), thereby leading to direct impact and
opening a wide range of career perspectives to the
student at the end of the PhD.

Methodology:
Partners and collaboration (including CASE):
Specific objectives to achieve:
O1. Identify city geo-resources influencing urban
design. This will be done accounting for above- and
below-ground components of city systems, and green
and blue infrastructure as integral parts of ecofriendly and sustainable ways of designing cities.
O2. Quantify the resilience performance of current
practices of designing different cities architectures
and buildings in relation to city geo-resource usage.
The student will have full access to BGS core datasets
(e.g., GeoSure, SuDS, Mines and Quarries). The
geographical focus will be the UK, but the research
method might extend to selected case studies
overseas.
The student will carry out part of their research at BGS
in Keyworth, Nottingham (total period of 3-4 months).
The placement will involve working directly with BGS
Urban Geoscience Team, accessing and analysing
nationwide geological and environmental datasets,
geohazard products and digital datasets relevant to
the research project. This provides an exceptional
opportunity to build a professional and academic
profile capable to connect specialist geological
expertise and urban design skills to the broader
decision-making context of a complex project and
geoscientific data provision.
O3. Generate a geo-resource systems analysis tool
highlighting strengths, weaknesses, opportunities,
possible threats and proposed way forwards to
resilient urban design. This analysis will specifically
include an assessment of the physical, economic and
social implications for urban communities, shaping
new and existing spaces through planning, design and
management, and redesign to mitigate for potential
threats.
Data analytic and statistical foundations, including
introduction to core methods and tools.
The student will strengthen in the skills of
‘Sustainability Science and Planning’, ‘Data
Management’, ‘Modelling’ and ‘Translating Research
into Practice’ that NERC (2012) identified as ‘most
wanted’ and ‘cross-disciplinary’ in the environment
sector.
This project will benefit from existing BGS/Warwick
collaboration, support from the Warwick Institute for
the Science of Cities and Warwick’s Resilient Cities
Laboratory. Warwick is also the only European partner
in the international Center for Urban Science and
Progress (CUSP) based in New York, which provides an
international platform for the dissemination and
exploitation of this research.
As the PhD progresses, the supervisory team will
pursue options for a placement with an urban
planning/design company in Year 2 providing the
student with a bespoke development opportunity.
Training and skills:
CENTA students are required to complete 45 days
training throughout their PhD including a 10 day
placement. In the first year, students will be trained as
a single cohort on environmental science, research
methods and core skills. Throughout the PhD, training
will progress from core skills sets to master classes
specific to the student's projects and themes.
Specifically for this project, the PhD student will gain
state-of-the-art skills of urban resilience and how to
integrate geological approaches into urban analysis,
modelling and planning.
Training will be provided in:
 Urban geological environments: assessment and
investigation;
 GIS and geospatial analysis;
 3D geological modelling and high-resolution 3D
visualisation of spatial data to interrogate wide
range of environmental datasets and relate
subsurface ground investigations to the aboveground;
Possible timeline:
Year 1: The student will undertake a comprehensive
literature review of contemporary theory and practice
of sustainable urbanism harnessing the intrinsic
natural resources of the site. The student will collate
data and analyse case studies for comparative
assessment. The expected research output is the
publication of a white paper.
Year 2: Building upon the findings of this review, the
student will focus on definition and implementation of
metrics to assess quantitatively the role played by
each subsurface geo-resource and their combination
on the resilient performance of most representative
forms of cities and buildings. The analysis will be
across the UK and also include an assessment of the
value of the geoscientific information and ground
investigation as integral part of the design process.
The results will be presented in a scientific peerreviewed publication.
Year 3: The student will develop a ‘geoscientificthinking model’ as a new paradigm of urban design,
associated with a systems analayis tool of the
challenges and opportunities towards resilient design
solutions. Time will be dedicated to dissertation
preparation, alongside dissemination at international
conferences and stakeholder meetings as part of the
pathways to impact of this research.
Further reading:
Bianca, S. (2014) Morphology as the Study of City
Form and Layering. In: Reconnecting the City (eds
F. Bandarin and R. van Oers), John Wiley & Sons,
Ltd, Oxford, UK, pp. 85-111.
Bricker, S., Reeves, H., Campbell, S.D.G., Price, S. The
ground beneath cities: where should future
development occur? A Thought Piece by British
Geological
Survey.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/
uploads/attachment_data/file/461947/futurecities-ground-beneath.pdf
Coaffee, J. (2009) Terrorism, Risk and the Global City –
towards urban resilience. Ashgate, Farnham.
Coaffee, J. (2013) Rescaling and Responsibilising the
Politics of Urban Resilience: From National Security
to Local Place-Making, Politics doi: 10.1111/14679256.12011
European Commission (2002) Consultative Guidelines
for Sustainable Urban Development Co-operation.
Towards Sustainable Urban Development: a
Strategic
Approach.
224
pp.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/dpuprojects/21st_Century/resources/institutional/Pdf
%20files/Tow_Sust_Urb_EU_Guidelines.pdf
Homes and Communities Agency (2000, 2013) Urban
Design Compendium. (ed L. D. Yeang), 121 pp.
http://udc.homesandcommunities.co.uk/urbandesign-compendium?page_id=5542&page=200
London’s Zero Carbon Energy Resource: Secondary
Heat
Report
Phase
1
https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/130
220%20031250%20GLA%20Low%20Carbon%20He
at%20Study%20Report%20Phase%201%20%20Rev01_0.pdf
Margottini, C. and Spizzichino, D. (2014) How Geology
Shapes Human Settlements. In: Reconnecting the
City (eds F. Bandarin and R. van Oers), John Wiley
& Sons, Ltd, Oxford, UK, pp. 47-84.
NERC (2012) Most Wanted II Postgraduate and
Professional Skills Needs in the Environment
Sector. LWEC Report 2012.
Resilience in Ecology and Urban Design. Linking
Theory and Practice for Sustainable Cities. Pickett,
S.T.A. et al. (eds), Springer, Netherlands, 2013, 499
pp. doi: 10.1007/978-94-007-5341-9
The UK Water Partnership (2015) Future Visions for
Water and Cities. A Thought Piece. 31 pp.
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/
uploads/attachment_data/file/439301/gs-15-27future-visions-for-water-and-cities-thoughtpiece.pdf
Further details:
For information about this PhD project, please contact
the supervisory team:
Jon Coaffee (J.Coaffee@warwick.ac.uk)
Stephen Jarvis (S.A.Jarvis@warwick.ac.uk)
Deodato Tapete (deodato@bgs.ac.uk)
Stephanie Bricker (step@bgs.ac.uk)
More information about the Warwick Institute for the
Science
of
Cities
can
be
found
at:
http://www.wisc.warwick.ac.uk
The Warwick Resilient Cities Laboratory can be found
via the following link:
http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/rcl/
The international Center for Urban Science and
Progress (CUSP) can be found at
http://cusp.nyu.edu
For information about BGS Urban Geoscience Team
and ongoing urban science research please visit:
http://www.bgs.ac.uk/research/engineeringGeology/
urbanGeoscience/home.html
http://britgeopeople.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/futurevisions-for-water-and-citiesby.html
Applicants with either environmental science or urban
design background are encouraged to apply.