Research group: Urban environments
Improving understanding of life in cities - the links between humans and nature, how to make spaces more resilient, and how city living affects health.
About us
About our research
Our group brings together researchers from geography, environmental science, chemistry, environmental management, and ecology to examine urban environments.
We focus on:
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the links between people and ecological systems
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how good planning and design can make cities more resilient to problems such as climate change, flooding and changes in transport and shopping habits
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the health of urban populations
Our research tackles global challenges and our evidence is used by local, national and international policymakers as well as a wide range of public, private, and third sector organisations.
We have strong links with organisations in China, South America and Africa.
As an interdisciplinary group we can respond quickly to joint funding calls and we actively seek research partnerships with individuals and organisations to develop this potential.
Research techniques we use include:
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policy analysis
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GIS and remote sensing
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citizen science
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big data / data analytics
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artificial intelligence
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qualitative approaches
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direct and indirect ecological and environmental sampling (acoustic, eDNA, air sensors)
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chemical analysis
We also supervise postgraduate research students and are happy to discuss the opportunities available.
The Urban Environments group has strong links with the University’s Research Centre for Applied Social Sciences (RCASS) and the Institute of Place Management.
We work closely with colleagues in the Conservation, Ecology, Evolution and Behaviour research group, focusing on urban ecology.
Our research themes
Human-ecology interfaces
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Biodiversity
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Ecosystem functions, services and disservices
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Links between health, wellbeing and greenspace
Resilience
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Dealing with environmental challenges such as climate change through smarter urban planning and design
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Geospatial analysis of risk, vulnerability and adaptation
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Flood risks
Health
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Relationships between physical, natural and built environments and their impact on human health
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Inequalities
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Challenges of urban living
Featured research
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Key publications
- SM. Griffiths, M. Galambao, J. Rowntree, I. Goodhead, J. Hall, et al. (2020). Complex associations between cross‐kingdom microbial endophytes and host genotype in ash dieback disease dynamics. Journal of Ecology. 108(1), pp.291-309.
- EJ. Schofield, RW. Brooker, JK. Rowntree, EAC. Price, FQ. Brearley, et al. (2019). Plant-plant competition influences temporal dynamism of soil microbial enzyme activity. Soil Biology and Biochemistry. 139, pp.107615-107615.
- G. Fox, R. Preziosi, RE. Antwis, M. Benavides-Serrato, FJ. Combe, et al. (2019). Multi-individual Microsatellite identification: a multiple genome approach to microsatellite design (MiMi). Molecular Ecology Resources. 19(6), pp.1672-1680.
- EJ. Schofield, JK. Rowntree, E. Paterson, MJ. Brewer, EAC. Price, et al. (2019). Cultivar Differences and Impact of Plant-Plant Competition on Temporal Patterns of Nitrogen and Biomass Accumulation. Frontiers in Plant Science. 10, pp.215-215.
- JK. Rowntree, H. Craig (2019). The contrasting roles of host species diversity and parasite population genetic diversity in the infection dynamics of a keystone parasitic plant. Journal of Ecology. 107(1), pp.23-33.
Contact
Contact us
You can contact individual members of the team through their staff profiles.
For general enquiries, please contact research group lead Dr Gina Cavan.