Australian Smart Environmental Observatory
Monitoring to Shape Future Cities
The Australian Smart Environmental Observatory is a multi-year project funded through the ARC’s Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities (LIEF) 2026 scheme. It provides state-of-the-art infrastructure, data and evidence to enable new research on the interconnected challenges of urban overheating, air pollution and noise exposure that face the future of Australian cities.
Project Details
- LIEF project number: LE260100123
- ARC funding: $1,209,463
- Universities cash contributions: $487,000
Background
As Australia is one of the most urbanised countries in the world, it is vital to ensure our cities are resilient to and prepared for a changing climate. The interconnected challenges of urban overheating, air pollution and noise exposure pose considerable health, economic, environmental and social risks for our cities. It has never been more critical for researchers and policymakers to understand the magnitude of these challenges, their local effects in different urban settings and the effectiveness of different mitigation options and the interactions between them.
Robust and reliable environmental data monitoring of urban vulnerability is fundamental to understanding the complexity and distribution of these challenges and the ways of addressing them. A lack of accurate environmental data and insufficient understanding of locally interconnected urban challenges often lead to poorly designed policies and mitigation strategies that are ineffective, and potentially costly to implement.
Aim & Scope
The Australian Smart Environmental Observatory (AuSEO) provides state-of-the-art infrastructure, data and evidence to enable new research on these interconnected urban challenges and better planning and policy making across Australian cities. The AuSEO consists of 14 resilient city hubs as physical infrastructure, along with cloud databases and a centralised sharing platform as digital infrastructure.
Each resilient city hub is a localised network of integrated environmental sensors that will monitor a diverse range of factors influencing the vulnerability of that location. Each hub responds to the specific characteristics and vulnerabilities of a particular location in relation to extreme heat, air pollution, noise exposure, light pollution and indoor air quality in representative buildings.
The AuSEO will establish a network of 14 resilient city hubs across NSW, Victoria and the ACT to monitor environmental exposures over time, helping to shape and deliver climate-resilient cities.
Key Benefits
- Significant scientific advancements: generating groundbreaking knowledge in local climatology, building science, pollution research and more.
- Capacity building: enhancing the skills and expertise of researchers and professionals and training the next generation of interdisciplinary researchers.
- Open access: equitable access to high-quality datasets that are not easily accessible elsewhere.
- Increasing future resilience: providing a strong foundation for developing and implementing holistic, evidence-based resilience policies and strategies, which will provide vast health, economic and environmental benefits for Australian cities.
Project Team
UNSW
- Scientia Professor Deo Prasad
- Scientia Professor Matthaios Santamouris
- A/Professor Lan Ding
- Professor Philip Oldfield
- A/Professor Riccardo Paolini
- Dr William Craft
- Honorary Associate Professor Marion Burgess
RMIT
University of Sydney
University of Canberra
NSW DCCEEW
- Matthew Riley
- Dr Lisa Chang
- Peter Runcie
WSROC
- Judith Bruinsma
Steering Committee
In progress. If you are interested, please contact us on the email below.
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