For the first time in history, more than half of the world’s population live in cities.

Urban Systems research program

CSIRO's Urban Systems research program brings together multi-disciplinary teams to develop new technologies and approaches to promote more sustainable urban planning and design outcomes.

22 October 2007 | Updated 14 October 2011

Overview
Research capabilities
Current activities
Partnerships
Achievements

Overview

CSIRO research is working to transform water, energy and waste management within our cities as well as building design and infrastructure planning to more sustainable configurations that will maximise the liveability and long-term health of our urban environment.

Working in cross-disciplinary teams, CSIRO's Urban Systems research program combines the human, built and natural components of the urban environment into broader systems analyses to gain new insights for greater urban sustainability.

To ensure the relevance of the program's activities they are aligned to the following national research priorities:

environmentally sustainable Australia
frontier technologies for building and transforming Australian industries
safeguarding Australia.

Our researchers are developing models, tools and technologies with the capacity to capture, exchange and analyse complex information that can assess the impact of built environment systems on the natural environment and economy, and then be integrated into the rapidly evolving frameworks used for developing more sustainable urban environments.

Research capabilities

Scientists are working within four broad disciplinary themes relating to key aspects of the urban environment.

1. Urban metabolism - key science foci include:

life cycle assessment
industrial ecology
simulation of stocks and flows (people, water, food, energy etc)
management and governance.

2. Urban infrastructure - key science foci include:

NBL performance indicators, targets and benchmarks
sensing and monitoring of physical performance measures
risk modelling and resilience
asset and facility management
sustainable workplaces and productivity.
CSIRO research is working to maximise the liveability and long-term health of our urban environment through better building design and infrastructure planning.

3. Urban environments - key science foci include:

urban form and urban amenity
conceptual design for urban development (integration of key domains such as energy, water, bushfire risk, accessibility, environment, health etc)
environmental health and well-being
bushfires
biodiversity
landscape and plant ecology.

4. Urban informatics - key science foci include:

three-dimensional (3D) building information modelling
interoperability
visualisation
spatial modelling integration (CAD-GIS for example)
platforms to integrate domain knowledge from across CSIRO
data mining.

Current activities

CSIRO's Urban Systems research program is based in:

Melbourne, Victoria
Sydney, New South Wales
Canberra, Australian Capital Territory.

Current research activities include:

high performance buildings and infrastructure: providing tools for automated eco-efficiency assessment of materials, buildings and infrastructure to improve performance through virtual prototyping
integrated urban design and development: developing and implementing an integrated urban development assessment toolkit for green-fields and urban re-fit application that meets set sustainability performance targets - it is envisaged that the toolkit will be applied in near-real-time by local and state governments and property development industry
transitioning to sustainable and healthier: building integrated models to represent the current urban systems performance (environmental, economic and social) at city and regional scales to assess future transition pathways for more sustainable cities, particularly in the areas of alternative energy, water, materials and built structures.

Partnerships

CSIRO has a significant record in delivering innovative urban systems research results and has a major international and national presence with research collaborations including:

Cooperative Research Centres
- Bushfire CRC
- eWater CRC
Europe agencies
- European Commission
- International Council for Innovation in Building and Construction Research
Asia (through AusAid)
the United Nations (UN Global Compact – Cities Program).

Achievements

The technologies developed by CSIRO have strong industry relevance and have seen a high level of adoption. Examples include:

TimberLife: a software tool with the capacity to demonstrate wood’s credentials as an environmentally and economically attractive building material
AccuRate: a nationally accepted software helping building designers achieve five-star standards for energy efficiency in new homes
DesignCheck: a software tool providing automated checking of designs against Australian building codes
NEMSIM (GENERSYS): a computer modelling system allowing major electricity players to make better decisions for a more efficient and stable industry
Your Building: a web-based information portal on sustainable commercial buildings
Energy Express: helping architects and engineers meet the energy efficient commercial building design rules in the 2006 Building Code of Australia
IRMAS: a commercialised risk management tool
Align 3D: a software program optimising international road and rail routes
Telstra's Cellular Network optimisation tool.