30 October 2013, 14:30-17:00 -

Londons Air Quality – can Green Walls help reduce the problem

 

A Greater London Branch Event

Date: 30 October 2013 (2.00 - 5.00 pm)

Subject: London’s Air Quality – can “Green Walls” help reduce the problem?

Location University College London

                 H O Schild Pharmacology Lecture Theatre (G46),

                 Medical Sciences & Anatomy,

                 Gower St., WC1E 6BT

 

Nearest Tube: Euston Square or Goodge St

Description

There has been a great deal of publicity about London's pollution problem and the health problems it may cause. Much less has been said about the research and the practical experiments that are being carried out across London in attempts to mitigate these problems. A "Green Wall" is a vertical construction containing pollution absorbing plants and is just just one of an increasing number of innovative proposals being considered. Our distinguished panel will talk about the ongoing research and the results of trials so far

Speakers Linda Davies (IC), Louise Francis (UCL), Nicola Cheetham (TfL), Dr Benjamin Barratt (KCL), John Dyer (Biotecture) Mark Laurence

Linda Davies is an ecologist at the Centre for Environmental Policy at Imperial College London.She is currently Director of Open Air Laboratories, one of the largest environmental citizen science programmes in Europe and Director of the European Citizen Science Association. Research interests are broad and range from the UK National Ecosystem Assessment to papers on lichenology.The Green walls project, funded by TfL, developed from an MSc student project on deposition of particulates to shrubs. Results from a follow-up project in 2011/12 on deposition to plants in locations with elevated levels of PM10 will be presented.

Louise Francis is a co-founder and Managing Director of Mapping for Change. She has an academic background in environmental science and has over ten years’ experience of working with communities and grass-roots organisations in the UK and throughout the Eastern Caribbean, with a particular focus on justice, sustainability and community development. She specialises in the delivery of participatory mapping and citizen science activities. She is responsible for the day to day management of MfC and oversees the development and delivery of our activities.

Nicola Cheetham is Head of Environment - Surface Transport TfL

Dr Ben Barratt has worked within the Environmental Research Group at King's College London since 1994 and helped to formulate and develop the London Air Quality Network. As well as continuing to work with local authorities on air quality monitoring issues, he now specialises in the assessment of the impact of Local Air Quality Management initiatives and assessments of personal exposure to air pollution.

Recent research work includes an analysis of the impact of the first two phases of the London Low Emission Zone on traffic and air pollution concentrations on behalf of Transport for London and the US Health Effects Institute. Prior to this he was part of a consortium of researchers examining the impact of the London Congestion Charging Scheme on air quality.

Mark Laurence has spent a lifetime working as an arboriculturalist, an aquatic gardener, a landscape designer and an sustainability expert. In 2006 a commission from the London School of Economics to create a feasibility study for a sustainable landscape to the LSE’s campus led to the idea of vertical greening and eventually to his co-founding of Biotecture. In the same year he created a sustainable landscape for Grand Designs Live.

Mark co-designed and developed a unique modular hydroponic system which became the patented Biotecture Biowall, now in use from the USA to the UAE, to Norway. As Biotecture’s creative director, Mark selected plants, ran trials and designed all the living walls, including Edgware Road.

In 2012 Mark Left Biotecture to work in wider aspects of urban greening. This includes designing green walls (for Biotecture and others), working with trees and developing other new methods of internal and external urban vertical greening. Mark is a passionate believer in greening delivering Ecosystem Services, something we have barely begun to explore.

 

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