Newcastle University

Introduction

I joined the School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences in 2004 as part of Geomatics research group. My research interests focus on:

• Spatial analytical approaches for the analysis of urban systems & cities; particularly the study of urban form and function.
• Spatial risk assessment of climate change hazards within cities.
• Integrated urban spatial modelling for city scale adaption and risk analysis.
• Urban Earth observation including optical, thermal and hyperspectral.
• Spatial analysis and modelling of complex coupled spatial infrastructure networks.
• Spatial decision support tools for use in geospatial engineering applications including cities, transport corridors & regional scale land use assessment.

Roles and Responsibilities

Geomatics Research Group Postgraduate Research selector and tutor

Geomatics representative School Research Postgraduate Board of Studies

Qualifications

PhD Urban Earth Observation 2002.

BSc (Hons.) Geography 1989.

Previous Positions

2004-2009: Lecturer in Geographical Information Science, School of Civil Engineering& Geosciences, Newcastle University.

1998-2004: Lecturer in Remote Sensing & GIS, School of Geography, University of Leeds.

1996-1998: Senior Research Officer, Department of Geography, University of Wales Swansea. NERC research grant, "Development of a Region-Based Spatial Analysis System (SAMS) and its Application to Monitor the Urban Environment from Satellite Sensor Images".

1994-1996: Research Computing Officer, Department of Geography, University of Manchester.

1992-1994: Research Officer, Department of Geography, University College London. NERC TIGAR III.3 Research Initiative, "Global and Regional Topography and Vegetation Cover for Continental Scale Hydrological Modelling".

Honours and Awards

1996: American Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing, ERDAS award for best scientific paper in Remote Sensing published in Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing in 1996.

1992: International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing XVII Quadrennial Congress, Young Author Best Paper Award, refereed award of £1,000 and presentation of paper at a special award session of the congress (4 awards world wide for authors under the age of 35 years).

Industrial Experience

Research Interests

My research interests focus on:

• Spatial analytical approaches for the analysis of urban systems & cities; particularly the study of urban form and function.
• Spatial risk assessment of climate change hazards within cities.
• Integrated urban spatial modelling for city scale adaption and risk analysis.
• Urban Earth observation including optical, thermal and hyperspectral.
• Spatial analysis and modelling of complex coupled spatial infrastructure networks.
• Spatial decision support tools for use in geospatial engineering applications including cities, transport corridors & regional scale land use assessment.

With colleagues in the Geospatial Engineering group in Geomatics I work on a range of cross disciplinary problems in the field of Earth Systems Engineering, collaborating with Civil Engineers on developing robust solutions and adaption options for a range of climate change hazards. I am a member of the University Centre for Earth Systems Engineering and the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

Postgraduate Supervision

Current:

Daniel Caparros-Midwood: Managing climate risks in cities through optimised spatial planning, 2011-pres.

Craig Robson: Relational database modelling and analysis of complex spatial infrastructure network interdependence, 2011-pres.

Tomas Holderness: Thermal Earth observation for monitoring intra-urban temperature dynamics, 2007-pres.

Ann Fraszczyk: Transport and GIS analysis of excess travel behaviour, 2007-pres.

Completed:

Pannee Cheewinsiriwat

Andrew Hardy

Nikorn Mahawan

Sirivilai Teerarojanarat

Davina White

Esteem Indicators

2011-2012: Invited member of the steering committee and external international assessor of the Belgium Science Policy funded project ASIMUD (Remote Sensing Data Assimilation in Modelling of Urban Dynamics).

2011: Invited 2-day participation and presentation at Applied Urban Modelling Symposium, Cambridge University, 2011. Two day workshop on developments and challenges in applied urban and cities modelling.

2011: Invited international evaluator of Belgian Government Science Policy Office "STEREO: Support to the exploitation and research of earth observation data" programme proposals.

2011: Scientific reviewer of abstracts for the RSPSoc (Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Society) Annual Conference.

2009-2011: Invited member of the steering committee and external international assessor of the Belgium Science Policy funded project MAMUD (Measuring and Modeling Urban Dynamics: Impact on
Quality of Life and Hydrology).

2005-pres: Member of the editorial board of Computers, Environment and Urban Systems (CEUS) journal.

1999-2005: Convenor of the Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing Society special interest group on GIS.

2005: Invited grant reviewer for the Netherlands Institute for Space Research.

2005: Invited expert reviewer/assessor of Greek General Secretariat for Research and Technology project DRAGON.

2005: Invited seminar presentation at the open public session of the Belgium Science Policy funded project SPIDER (Improving spatial information extraction for local and regional decision-making using very-high-resolution remotely sensed data). "Urban Earth observation: applications, progress and challenges". Department of Geography, University of Liege, Belgium, 21st January 2005.

2004-2006: Invited member of the steering committee and external international assessor of the Belgium Science Policy funded project MAMASU (Detecting man-made structures using multi-spectral and geometric classification methods).

2004-2005: Invited member of the steering committee and external international assessor of the Belgium Science Policy funded project SPIDER (Improving spatial information extraction for local and regional decision-making using very-high-resolution remotely sensed data).

2003: Invited presentation at the Association of Geographic Information (AGI) meeting on Earth Imagery and Remote Sensing for GIS. "Urban Earth observation: evaluation of new very high spatial resolution satellite sensors for the inference of land use and land cover information". School of Computing, University of Glamorgan, 2nd April 2003.

2002: Invited participation and presentation at a 2-day international research workshop on feature extraction from Earth observed data organised by Ordnance Survey, UK.

2001-pres: Invited manuscript reviewer for Remote Sensing of Environment, International Journal of Remote Sensing, International Journal of Geographical Information Science, IEEE Transactions of Geoscience and Remote Sensing, Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing, Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, International Journal of Information Fusion and Geojournal.

Funding

2010-2015 EPSRC Programme Grant EP/I01344X/1 UK Infrastructure Transitions Research Consortium: Long term dynamics of interdependent infrastructure systems. Co-I (£2,500,000).

2009-2012 EPSRC Grant EP/G061254/1
ARCADIA: Adaptation and Resilience in Cities: Analysis and decision making using integrated assessment. Co-I (£669,579).

2009-2010 Tyndall Centre Phase 2 Transition
Engineering Urban Systems: How can cities grow whilst also reducing vulnerability and emissions? Co-I (£273,826).

2008-2013 EPSRC Platform Grant EP/G013403/1
Earth systems engineering: sustainable systems engineering for adapting to global change. Co-I (£1,345,579).

2008-2010 EPSRC Grant EP/F037422/1
SWERVE - Severe Weather Events Risk and Vulnerability Estimator. Co-I (£446,755).

2007-2010 EPSRC Standard Grant EP/E017428/1
SCORCHIO: Sustainable Cities: Options for Responding to Climate cHange Impacts and Outcomes. Co-I (£124,384).

2007-2009 EU TEMPUS Grant
GISPAL: GIS Core Curriculum for Palistine. Newcastle lead Co-I (250,000euro (56,000euro Newcastle)).

2006-2009 Tyndall Centre Phase 2
Engineering Urban Systems: How can cities grow whilst also reducing vulnerability and emissions? Co-I (£417,445).

2006-2009 EPSRC Standard Grant EP/D023726/1
Remote asset inspection for transport corridor environments. Co-I (£291,719).

2004-2007 NERC Standard Grant NE/B505270/1
SLICES: Changes in Glacier Geometry and Extent in Svalbard: implications for Sea-level Rise During the 20th and 21st Centuries. Co-I (£280,000 (£64,848 to Newcastle).

CEG2704: Geographical Information Science: Theory and Application.

CEG2706: Geospatial Algorithms.

CEG2715: Advanced Study Skills for Physical Geographers.

CEG3701: Geographical Information Science Stage 3 Fieldcourse.

CEG3407: Advanced Geoinformatics.

CEG3305: Computational Enginerring Analysis.

• Holderness T, Barr SL, Dawson R, Hall J. An evaluation of thermal Earth observation for characterizing urban heatwave event dynamics using the urban heat island intensity metric. International Journal of Remote Sensing 2013, 34(3), 864-884.
• Thacker S, Henriques J, Hall J, Alderson D, Barr S. A "First Pass" Analysis of Infrastructure Vulnerability to Flood Hazards in the UK. In: Network of Networks: Systemic Risk and Infrastructural Interdependencies. 2012, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
• Miller P, Mills J, Barr SL, Birkinshaw S, Hardy A, Parkin G, Hall S. A Remote Sensing Approach for Landslide Hazard Assessment on Engineered Slopes. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing 2012, 50(4), 1048-1056.
• Hardy AJ, Barr SL, Mills JP, Miller PE. Characterising soil moisture in transport corridor environments using airborne LIDAR and CASI data. Hydrological Processes 2012, 26(13), 1925-1936.
• McCullough A, James P, Barr S. Near real-time geoprocessing on the grid: A scalable approach to road traffic monitoring. International Journal of Geographical Information Science 2012, 26(10), 1939-1957.
• Fu G, Khoury M, Alderson D, Dawson R, Bullock S, Barr S. Vulnerability Analysis of Large Scale Interdependent Infrastructure Systems. In: Network of Networks: Systemic Risk and Infrastructural Interdependencies. 2012, Chicago, Illinois, USA.
• McCullough A, James P, Barr S. A Service Oriented Geoprocessing System for Real-Time Road Traffic Monitoring. Transactions in GIS 2011, 15(5), 651-665.
• Walsh CL, Dawson RJ, Hall JW, Barr SL, Batty M, Bristow AL, Carney S, Dagoumas A, Ford AC, Harpham C, Tight MR, Watters H, Zanni A. Assessment of climate change mitigation & adaptation in cities. Urban Design and Planning 2011, 164(2), 75-84.
• Hall JW, Dawson RJ, Barr SL, Batty M, Bristow AL, Carney S, Dagoumas A, Ford A, Tight MR, Walsh CL, Watters H, Zanni AM. City-scale integrated assessment of climate impacts, adaptation and mitigation. In: Bose, R.K, ed. Energy Efficient Cities: Assessment Tools and Benchmarking Practices. Washington, DC, USA: World Bank, 2010, pp.43-64.
• Barr S, Fraszczyk A, Mulley C. Excess travelling-what does it mean? New definition and a case study of excess commuters in Tyne and Wear, UK. European Transport Research Review 2010, 2(2), 69-83.
• Dawson RJ, Hall JW, Walsh CL, Barker T, Barr SL, Batty M, Bristow A, Burton A, Carney S, Dagoumas A, Evans S, Ford AC, Glennis V, Goodess C, Harpham C, Harwatt H, Kilsby CG, Kohler J, Jones P, Manning L, McCarthy M, Sanderson M, Tight M, Timms M, Zanni A. The Tyndall Centre’s Urban Integrated Assessment Facility. UGEC Viewpoints 2010, 3, 8-12.
• Dawson RJ, Hall JW, Barr SL, Batty M, Bristow A, Carney S, Dagoumas A, Evans S, Ford AC, Harwatt H, Kohler J, Tight M, Walsh CL, Zanni A. A blueprint for the integrated assessment of climate change in cities. In: Tang, K, ed. Green CITYnomics: The Urban War against Climate Change. Sheffield: Greenleaf Publishing, 2009, pp.32-52.
• Triantakonstantis DP, Barr SL. A Spatial Structural and Statistical Approach to Building Classification of Residential Function for City-Scale Impact Assessment Studies. In: Computational Science and Its Applications: ICCSA 2009, Part 1. 2009, Seoul, Korea: Springer-Verlag Berlin.
• Hardy AJ, Miller PE, Mills JP, Barr SL. Characterising soil moisture as an indicator of transport corridor slope instability using remotely sensed data. In: The Twelfth International Conference on Civil, Structural and Environmental Engineering Computing. 2009, Funchal, Madeira, Portugal.
• Hall JW, Dawson RJ, Barr SL, Batty M, Bristow AL, Carnet S, Dagoumas A, Ford A, Tight MR, Walsh CL, Watters H, Zanni AM. City-scale integrated assessment of climate impacts, adaptation and mitigation. In: 5th Urban Research Symposium. 2009, Marseille, France: World Bank.
• Hall JW, Dawson RJ, Walsh CL, Barker T, Barr SL, Batty M, Bristow AL, Burton A, Carney S, Dagoumas A, Evans S, Ford AC, Glenis V, Goodess CG, Harpham C, Harwatt H, Kilsby CG, Kohler J, Jones P, Manning L, McCarthy M, Sanderson M, Tight MR, Timms PM, Zanni A. Engineering Cities: How can cities grow whilst reducing emissions and vulnerability?. The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, 2009.
• Miller PE, Hardy AJ, Mills JP, Barr SL, Birkinshaw SJ, Parkin G, Glendinning S, Hall JW. Intelligent integration of multi-sensor data for risk assessment in transport corridor environments. In: ISPRS Workshop: High-Resolution Earth Imaging for Geospatial Information. 2009, Hannover: ISPRS.
• Barrand NE, Murray T, James TD, Barr SL, Mills JP. Optimizing photogrammetric DEMs for glacier volume change assessment using laser-scanning derived ground-control points. Journal of Glaciology 2009, 55(189), 106-116.
• White DC, Williams M, Barr SL. Detecting sub-surface soil disturbance using hyperspectral first derivative band ratios of associated vegetation stress. In: 21st ISPRS Congress. 2008, Beijing, China: International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing.
• Cheewinsiriwat P, James PM, Barr SL. Developing 3D GIS web services. In: 5th International Conference on Geographic Information Systems 2008 (ICGIS 2008). 2008, Istanbul, Turkey.
• Hardy A, Mills JP, Barr SL. Hyperspectral response of embankment grass to artifical wetting. In: RSPSoc. 2008, Exeter, UK: The Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Society.
• Miller PE, Mills JP, Barr SL, Lim M, Barber D, Parkin G, Clarke B, Glendinning S, Hall JW. Terrestrial laser scanning for assessing the risk of slope instability along transport corridors. International Archives of Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences 2008, 37(B5), 495-500.
• Dawson RJ, Hall JW, Barr SL, Batty M, Bristow A, Carney S, Evans S, Ford A, Köhler J, Tight M, Walsh CL. A blueprint for the integrated assessment of climate change in cities. Tyndall Centre for Climate Change, 2007. 104.
• Chikomo FO, Mills JP, Barr SL. Adaptive building model reconstruction from airborne lidar and optical imagery. In: 2007 Annual Conference of the Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Society (RSPSoc 2007). 2007, Newcastle-upon-Tyne: International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing.
• Chikomo FO, Mills JP, Barr SL. An integrated approach to level-of-detail building extraction and modelling using airborne lidar and optical imagery. International Archives of Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences 2007, 36, 6.
• White DC, Williams M, Barr SL. Characterising pipeline earthworks associated vegetation stress with field spectroscopy. In: RSPSoc Annual Conference: Challenges for Earth Observation: Scientific, Technical and Commercial. 2007, University of Newcastle upon Tyne: RSPSoc.
• Lim M, Mills JP, Barr SL, Barber D, Glendinning S, Parkin G, Hall JW, Clarke B. High resolution earth imaging for transport corridor slope stability risk analysis. In: ISPRS Hannover Workshop 2007: High-Resolution Earth Imaging for Geospatial Information. 2007, Leibniz University, Hannover, Germany: Institute of Photogrammetry and GeoInformation.
• Lim M, Mills JP, Barr SL, Barber D, Glendinning S, Parkin G, Hall JW, Clarke B. High resolution remote mapping of transport corridors for risk analysis. In: Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Society Annual Conference: Challenges for Earth Observation - Scientific, Technical and Commercial. 2007, University of Newcastle upon Tyne: Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Society.
• White DC, Williams M, Barr SL. Hyperspectral Characterisation of arable crop stress associated with buried gas pipeline earthworks. In: 5th EARSeL Workshop on Imaging Spectroscopy. 2007, Bruges, Belgium.
• James TD, Barr SL, Lane SN. Automated correction of surface obstruction errors in digital surface models using off-the-shelf image processing. The Photogrammetric Record 2006, 21(116), 373-397.
• Teerarojanarat S, Fairbairn D, Barr S. Comparing logistic regression methods for micro-simulation urban land use change modelling. In: 25th Urban Data Management Symposium. 2006, Aalborg, Denmark.
• James TD, Murray T, Barrand NE, Barr SL. Extracting photogrammetric ground control from lidar DEMs for change detection. The Photogrammetric Record 2006, 21(116), 312-328.
• White D, Williams M, Barr SL. Hyperspectral detection of arable crop stress associated with buried gas pipeline soil disturbance. In: Proceedings of the Atlantic Europe Conference on Remote Imaging and Spectroscopy. 2006, Preston, UK: Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.
• White DC, Williams M, Barr SL. Minimising background effects in field spectra of arable crops to detect stress associated with soil disturbance. In: Annual Conference of the Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Society. 2006, Cambridge, UK.
• White DC, Williams M, Barr SL. Minimising background effects in field spectra of arable crops to detect stress associated with soil disturbance. In: The Society for Experimental Biology (SEB) Workshop Imaging Techniques for Understanding Plant Responses to Stresses. 2006, Canterbury, UK.
• White D, Williams M, Barr S. Minimising background effects in field spectra of arable crops to detect stress associated with soil disturbance. In: Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology A: Molecular & Integrative Physiology, Annual Main Meeting of the Society for Experimental Biology. 2006, Canterbury, UK: Elsevier Inc.
• White DC, Williams M, Barr SL. An investigation into the capability of hyperspectral data to detect buried pipeline remediation induced vegetation stress. In: Annual Conference of the Remote Sensing and Photogrammetry Society. 2005, Portsmouth, UK.
• Pritchard H, Murray T, Luckman A, Strozzi T, Barr SL. Glacier surge dynamics of Sortebrae, east Greenland, from synthetic aperture radar feature tracking. Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface 2005, 110(F3), F03005.
• Teerarojanarat S, Fairbairn D, Barr S. Modelling Urban Growth with Cellular Automata Built in a GIS Environment: A Case Study of Lat Phrao, Bangkok, Thailand. In: Proceedings of GISRUK 13. 2005, University of Glasgow.
• Barr SL, Barnsley MJ. Characterizing land use in urban systems via built-form connectivity models. In: Kelly REJ; Drake NA; Barr SL, ed. Spatial Modelling of the Terrestrial Environment. Chichester: John Wiley and Sons, 2004, pp.201-226.
• Barr SL, Barnsley MJ, Steel A. On the separability of urban land-use categories in fine spatial scale land-cover data using structural pattern recognition. Environment and Planning B: Planning & Design 2004, 31(3), 397-418.
• Steel AM, Barnsley MJ, Barr SL. Determining urban land use through an analysis of the spatial composition of buildings identified in LIDAR and multispectral image data. In: Mesev V, ed. Remotely Sensed Cities. London: Taylor and Francis, 2003, pp.83-108.
• Pritchard H, Murray T, Strozzi T, Barr SL, Luckman A. Surge-related topographic change of the glacier Sortebræ, East Greenland, derived from synthetic aperture radar interferometry. Journal of Glaciology 2003, 49(166), 381-390.
• Barnsley MJ, Barr SL. Monitoring urban land use by Earth observation. Surveys in Geophysics 2001, 21(2/3), 269-289.