Craig Thomas

MSc Environmental Governance, University of Manchester.

BA (Hons) 2:1 Classical Civilisation (European), University of Leeds.

Exploring the practice of PM10 modelling and monitoring and its translation into air quality management.

Supervisors: Noel Castree and James Evans.

Network governance, common pool resource management, political economy, air pollution, human geography, cognitive space, technology, smart cities.

The European Commission is pursuing a legal action against the UK for it’s failing to comply with air quality standards for dangerous airborne particles (European Commission 2010). The government fears imposed fines could cost the UK £300 million per year (Commons Environmental Audit Committee 2010).

Aim

This research project explores the connections between PM10 modelling and modellers and scientific pollution monitoring communities in light of increasing disparity between predicted and monitored results (Harrison et al. 2008). I seek to understand each community’s practices in the context of the ‘upstream’ and ‘downstream’ expectations, pressures and constraints under which they operate.

The project’s main research questions are:

1. What can be learnt about British air quality management from connections between PM10 modelling and modellers and scientific pollution monitoring communities in light of increasing disparity between predicted and monitored results?
2. How are monitoring and modelling ‘communities of practice’ affected by extant institutional and resource constraints, and how does knowledge produced ‘travel’ into the policy domain?