Geography and Planning - Understanding the relationship between urban form, mobility and CO2 emissions

Supervisor: Professor Francisco Rowe

Supervisor bio: Francisco's areas of expertise are: internal & international migration; human mobility; and geographic data science. He is featured in the Experts Database of the United Nations Network on Migration and two of his projects on Big Data, machine learning and migration are listed in the Data Innovation Directory of the International Organization for Migration. He has been invited to present his research at the United Nations Population & Development Division in New York and works closely with the Global Migration Data Analysis Centre within International Organization for Migration, the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, the UK2070 Commission, UK’s government organisations, including the Ordnance Survey and the ONS Data Campus, and commercial companies, Geolytix. His work contributed to the United Nations Expert group meeting on `sustainable cities, human mobility and international migration', and the ONS Government Statistical Service Advisory Committee. Francisco is the current managing editor of REGION (2022-present), the journal of the European Regional Science Association (2018-present) and social media editor at the Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A (2021-present). The international reach of his research has been recognised by an award for the best paper published in the journal of Geographical Systems (2021) and in Spatial Economic Analysis (2018) and having top articles in the top 10 most read articles in Spatial Economic Analysis (2017-present), Transportation Research Part C (2018-2019) & Population Studies (2018-present).

Email: fcorowe@liverpool.ac.uk

School: Environmental Sciences

Department: Geography and Planning

Module code: N/A

Suitable for students of: Geography, urban planning, environmental sciences, computer science, economics

Desired experience or requirements: N/A

Places available: 1

Start dates: 16 June 2025 only

Project length: 8 weeks 

Virtual option: Yes - In Person, Hybrid, and Virtual

Project description:

Understanding how urban form shapes urban mobility is key to develop effective climate change mitigation strategies to reduce carbon emissions. However, we currently lack of systematic evidence about the extent to which urban form deters or facilitates car over more sustainable modes of travel. The project aims to establish theoretical urban forms that may instil specific configurations of high or low-carbon-emission travel from a global sample of cities, and to investigate how the relationship between urban form and mobility differ across urban neighbourhoods.

Additional requirements: N/A