A Transdisciplinary Approach to Urban Air Quality Research

Urban areas are focal points of resource consumption, innovation, and governance, but they are also hotspots where environmental stressors such as air pollution and climate change impacts disproportionately affect human health and ecosystem resilience. Improving urban air quality is therefore a central challenge for transformations to sustainable and resilient cities. In Berlin, Germany, a series of mobility-related laws enacted over the past five years aim to transform the city’s transport system toward greater environmental sustainability and climate neutrality. However, due to Berlin’s size, historical development, and fragmented governance structures, these measures—such as new bicycle lanes and temporary street closures—are implemented incrementally across diverse urban districts, complicating the assessment of their localized environmental impacts.

Using the transdisciplinary research approach of the Research Institute for Sustainability (RIFS) at GFZ, measurement campaigns to accompany policy implementations were co-designed with local stakeholders from the Berlin Senate Department for the Environment, Urban Mobility, Consumer Protection and Climate Action (SenUMVK). This research contributed to broader evaluations of the policy implementations and the decision-making processes in the city. Building on these experiences, at a larger scale, a similar transdisciplinary approach was implemented as the foundation for Net4Cities, a project with the aim of facilitating the realization of the EU Green Deal’s Zero Pollution Action Plan by advancing air and noise pollution monitoring infrastructure and providing evidence-based support for implementing effective transport policies and thereby improving air quality and mitigating noise pollution. A harmonized transdisciplinary approach was developed and applied during the first year of the project to build on and establish relationships with the 11 partner cities. This approach formed the basis for the project, and in line with the localized Berlin work, was designed to facilitate exchange among the project and partner cities, integrate interests and perspectives from science and policy stakeholders, and increase uptake and the utility of the project outputs. The presentation will discuss the transdisciplinary framework, its application, how this influenced the results and their uptake, as well as reflections on such an approach to influence transformation processes. This contribution highlights how transdisciplinary research can support the monitoring and mitigation of urban environmental stressors, address synergies between air quality improvement and climate action, and facilitate the uptake of scientific evidence into urban policymaking processes.