Mission Statement
Housed at
CEE,
Northeastern
University,
the Clean Air, Smart City, And Digital Earth (CASCADE) Research
Lab was established in January 2020 to
conduct cutting edge research for clean air, smart city, and
digital Earth system.
We develop and
apply state-of-the-science numerical models to simulate human-induced
air pollution and its impact on human health, climate, natural
and built environments, and society. Our research spans from street- and
neighborhood scale to global and includes both retrospective and forecasting
applications. It covers air quality (outdoor and indoor), climate change and weather
extreme, human pollution exposure and health impacts, sustainable and resilient
smart city planning, and Earth system sciences. All these components are
inter-correlated and must be studied through an interdisciplinary and
transdisciplinary research program that combines all aspects of air pollution
including its scientific, societal, economic and political issues and that
integrates field, laboratory, satellite retrieval, modeling, and policy
analyses.
Our goals are to:
- Develop and
improve integrated air quality modeling system that can
simulate the sources, evolution and human/environmental impacts of air
pollutants at all scales.
- Enhance
scientific understanding of air pollution and associated impacts on health and
environment, and provide valuable information for the development of optimal
emission control strategies and policy analyses.
- Provide
educational opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students to develop the
abilities and skills to solve the most urgent environmental problems.
- Promote
interactions and collaborations among academia, governments, industry,
nonprofits, and communities to study air quality and its interactions with other
elements in the Earth system with a holistic approach.
Clean Air:
Integrate
numerical models, field measurements,
and laboratory experiments to study air quality, meteorology,
climate change, and their linkages with energy/fuel use and health impacts aiming
at making air cleaner, people healthier, and environment greener.
Smart City:
Use information,
digital and telecommunication technologies to improve the city's
operation including governance, planning, management,
livability, infrastructure, resources, sustainability, resilience, and efficiency,
and to tackle grand challenges of urbanization, population growth, and associated
air/water/soil pollution aiming at promoting smart cities, streets, neighborhoods,
environment, and people.
Digital Earth:
Advance Earth
system understanding through better integration of data and knowledge from
various Earth science disciplines and compartments (e.g.,
atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere, lithosphere, and anthroposphere) and stronger
capabilities of harnessing big data, employing new data science methods and
algorithms (e.g., Artificial-intelligent and machine-learning) aiming at enabling
a holistic view on the entire Earth System using multidisciplinary,
interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary approaches.
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