Urban Institute Ireland Working Papers

In recent years, awareness of air quality issues in urban areas has increased significantly. The negative consequences for human health as a result of poor air quality have resulted in numerous laws being enacted both in Ireland and around the world, in an attempt to limit exposure. Within the urban environment, motor vehicles are one of the most significant contributors to pollution. As a result, constant monitoring takes place but little work is done on predicting likely changes in air quality, for better or worse, as a result of changes in landuse or transport. The MOLAND model can provide the basis for an emissions estimation methodology to predict changes in vehicular emissions, and consequently air quality, both now and in the future, enabling policy makers and planners to examine the air quality implications of their decisions.

The importance and contribution of climate to energy demand are discussed. A linear regression model is developed to analyse future energy demand corresponding to climate change. The methodology for spatial analysis and integration to MOLAND are also provided in order to investigate possible consequences of different urban development paths on energy consumption patterns.

The EPA-funded Urban Environment Project seeks to apply MOLAND, a cellular automata based model, to predict a range of urban impacts in the Greater Dublin Region from 2006 onwards. One quantitative requirement, at least in the input stages of model building, is to establish average population densities for the different residential land use classes because the population must be allocated to cells in these classes. It has a separate output function when actually used within the MOLAND model, relating to the estimation of numbers of people affected by a particular scenario generated by the model. This working paper explores a series of approaches taken to identify population densities for a number of urban land-use categories. The results are documented against a number of differing spatial approaches to test for precision and applicability. Some suggestions are proposed as to the most effective method to use in developing the model.

The MOLAND project's aim is to provide spatial planning tools that can be used to assess, monitor and model the development of urban and regional environments. To date it has been applied to an area of over 70,000km2 across Europe. MOLAND's use as a tool for the assessment and forecasting of biodiversity is examined with Dublin city as a case study. It was found that, in its current form, the MOLAND model's use as a biodiversity assessment tool was limited. Several recommendations are made for improvements to its capability in this area.