Winner

Professor Marguerite Nyhan

Affiliation: School of Engineering & Architecture

UCC Futures: Sustainability Institute 

Research Project

Environmental Intelligence - Modelling Complex Human-Environment Interactions for Maximising Environmental Health & Equity in Urban Areas

Purpose of Research

This research advances the science of sustainable cities globally by developing novel, data-driven methods to quantify environmental exposures and inequalities among racial, ethnic, immigration status and income groups at hyperlocal scales. By integrating large-scale digital datasets on emissions, air pollution, urban greenspace, and human mobility, the research provides high-resolution evidence to inform the design of healthier, more sustainable, and more equitable urban environments.

Research Activities in 2025

In 2025, Prof. Nyhan’s Research Ireland-funded “Environmental Intelligence” project advanced the sustainability agenda by developing and leading innovative approaches to advancing the science underpinning sustainable and just urban systems. Her work focuses on generating high-resolution, data-driven evidence to support the design of healthier, more sustainable, and more equitable cities, directly aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).

A central contribution of her research has been the development of a novel, hyperlocal analytical framework that leverages large-scale digital datasets to quantify emissions, air pollution, urban greenspace, and population exposure at unprecedented spatial resolution. By integrating diverse data streams including street-level imagery, mobile sensing platforms, and human mobility data this work reveals fine-scale environmental exposure inequalities that were previously unobservable.

In 2025, as part of the “Environmental Intelligence” project, Prof. Nyhan led an international research collaboration with Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University to apply these methods across multiple urban contexts. Aligned to the UN SDGs, this work provided new evidence demonstrating that environmental exposure inequalities are highly context-specific and based on socio-economic factors including ethnicity, race, immigration status and income levels, and do not follow uniform patterns across cities. These findings challenge prevailing assumptions in the field and highlight the need for targeted, place-based and human-centric interventions rather than one-size-fits-all approaches to sustainability.

In parallel, her research has advanced understanding of the role of urban greenspace in shaping environmental health outcomes. By quantifying the relationship between greenspace and air pollution at a hyperlocal scale, this work provides a robust scientific basis for integrating green infrastructure into urban design as a means of improving both environmental quality and population health in cities throughout the world.

Beyond research outputs, Prof. Nyhan has demonstrated sustained leadership in advancing sustainability at UCC. As director of her research group, the Sustainable Futures Lab, she has established and led a large interdisciplinary research group of approximately ten researchers that brings together environmental engineering, data science, and sociology to address complex sustainability challenges. She mentors and supports a global research team from countries including India, Brazil, Sweden, the United States and Ireland, in working on sustainability-focused topics.

Her research programme advances UCC’s and the Sustainability Institute’s leadership in sustainability by combining methodological innovation, international collaboration, and real-world relevance. By generating actionable, high-resolution evidence on environmental inequalities, this work contributes directly to the development of more sustainable, equitable, and resilient urban systems at local, national, and global scales.

Selected Outputs

• L Purcell, A O'Regan, C McGookin, MM Nyhan (2025). Modelling urban carbon emissions for multiple sectors in high spatial resolution for achieving sustainable & net-zero cities. Sustainable Cities & Society 126 (106370).
• MES Sabedotti, F Duarte, P Koutrakis, P Santi, C Ratti, MM Nyhan (2026). Air pollution and greenspace exposure disparities revealed by hyperlocal exposure metrics across European cities. Communications Sustainability 1 (1), 48.
• AC O’Regan, H Grythe, P Schneider, MM Nyhan (2026). Integrating Low-Cost Sensors with Dispersion Modelling for High-Resolution Insights into Urban Air Quality. Environment International, 110157.

Description of SDGs Impact

This research makes a significant contribution to multiple United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by generating new scientific evidence on environmental exposures and inequalities in urban environments.

At the community level, the research identifies fine-scale disparities in air pollution and access to greenspace (SDG11.6 and 11.7), revealing environmental inequalities that directly affect population health and wellbeing (SDG 3.9, SDG 10.2). By uncovering these patterns at a previously unattainable spatial resolution, the work enables more targeted and equitable urban interventions.

At the national and international levels, the research establishes transferable methodologies for the assessment of environmental exposures using large-scale digital data. Comparative analyses across cities including Dublin, Copenhagen, and Amsterdam demonstrate that environmental inequalities are shaped by complex, context-specific dynamics, underscoring the need for tailored policy responses (SDG 11.6 and 11.7).

The research also contributes to climate action (SDG 13.2) by informing strategies to reduce urban emissions and enhance green infrastructure. By quantifying the relationship between greenspace and air quality, the work provides a robust evidence base for interventions that support both environmental sustainability and public health.

Through interdisciplinary collaboration and engagement with policymakers and international research partners, this work translates advanced scientific insights into actionable knowledge. In doing so, it supports the development of sustainable, healthy, and equitable cities and reinforces UCC’s leadership in addressing global sustainability challenges.