Dr Paul Brindley
BSc, PhD
School of Architecture and Landscape
Senior Lecturer
+44 114 222 0615
Full contact details
School of Architecture and Landscape
Arts Tower
Western Bank
Sheffield
S10 2TN
- Profile
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My research focuses on understanding the interplay between landscapes and people through the use of digital data and GIS mapping (Geographic Information Science).
My objective is to take a critical perspective in order to understand different interpretations of any set of spatial data. This involves developing innovative methodologies from data science (combining statistics and computer programming) and applying them within a landscape context.
As such I am interested in how landscapes are both presented and interpreted from digital representations. However, a critical perspective is required because we should always remember that models are merely simplifications of reality.
In the words of statistician George Box, “All models are wrong but some are useful.”
- Research interests
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My research interests centre of the use of digital representations of landscape, at the planning scale. This frequently involves the use of Geographic Information Science (GIS) and statistics to address the many challenges facing our landscapes. I have a particular interest in exploring inequalities in greenspace access, mapping land cover and in geographic definitions of the Rural-Urban divide.
The use of mobile technology forms an important strand of my research. I am interested in mapping using GPS but also in automated extraction from social media and other online data (such as Flickr and Twitter) in order to inform about the use and values of urban greenspace.
I am currently involved in the Improving Wellbeing through Urban Nature (IWUN) project, led by Dr Anna Jorgensen within the Department and funded by NERC through the Valuing Nature network. I am working on Work Package 1 which seeks to investigate the statistical relationships between health inequality, deprivation and greenspace in Sheffield using a range of secondary data (see funded research below).
I am a co-author on the Rural-Urban Classification which is the official statistic used to distinguish rural and urban areas in England and Wales. The work identified and characterised physical settlements in order to generate a typology of settlement form (such as ‘village,’ ‘town’ or ‘urban fringe’).
I am interested in vague and fuzzy geographic objects. Despite the widespread acknowledgment that people will frequently have varying opinions relating to spatial boundaries and categorization, most digital representations treat such continuous spatial objects as discrete objects. My doctoral studies were concerned with formulating vague definitions of place through the extraction of differing opinions held on the internet. As such, it generated vague and probabilistic data for both neighbourhood boundaries and settlement classifications. I am interested in applying these concepts within landscape planning (for example using vague boundaries within Landscape Character Assessment).
Funded Research Projects
I have worked on over 50 research projects. A complete list can be found here. A selection of my research projects are detailed below:
2016-2019: Improving Wellbeing through Urban Nature (IWUN) (Client: NERC)
I am working on Work Package 1 (WP1) with Anna Jorgensen, Ravi Maheswaran, Meghann Stanton, and Ross Cameron. WP1 is a place-based analysis of population-level linkages between natural environments, health inequality, deprivation and green space usage. It takes an epidemiological approach to investigating and evidence the relationship between urban Natural Environments and Health and Wellbeing in Sheffield. It focuses especially on the links between the characteristics of urban Natural Environments and Health and Wellbeing outcomes, and the way that this plays out within differing socio-economic population groups. See http://iwun.uk for further details2014: Rural-Urban Classification for Local Authority Districts in England (Client: Defra, ONS, CLG and Welsh Government)
Co-Investigator with Bibby, P. The work updated the 2001 official definitions for rural areas to tie in with the 2011 Census. See here for details.2013: Rural-Urban Classification (Client: Defra, ONS, CLG and Welsh Government)
Co-Investigator with Bibby, P. The work updated the 2001 official definitions for rural areas to tie in with the 2011 Census. See here for details.
- Publications
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Show: Featured publications All publications
Featured publications
Journal articles
- Urban centre green metrics in Great Britain: a geospatial and socioecological study. PLoS ONE, 17(11).
- The influence of socio-demographic factors on preference and park usage in Guangzhou, China. Land, 11(8).
- Mapping urban greenspace use from mobile phone GPS data. PLoS ONE, 16(7). View this article in WRRO
- Nature’s role in supporting health during the COVID-19 pandemic: a geospatial and socioecological study. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(5). View this article in WRRO
- Population-level linkages between urban greenspace and health inequality : the case for using multiple indicators of neighbourhood greenspace. Health & Place. View this article in WRRO
- Greenspace spatial characteristics and human health in an urban environment : an epidemiological study using landscape metrics in Sheffield, UK. Ecological Indicators, 106. View this article in WRRO
- Measuring urban greenspace distribution equity : the importance of appropriate methodological approaches. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 8(6). View this article in WRRO
- Understanding the socioeconomic equity of publicly accessible greenspace distribution: The example of Sheffield, UK. Geoforum. View this article in WRRO
- Is more always better? Exploring field survey and social media indicators of quality of urban greenspace, in relation to health. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 39, 45-54. View this article in WRRO
- Domestic gardens and self-reported health: a national population study. International Journal of Health Geographics, 17. View this article in WRRO
- Temporal changes in greenspace in a highly urbanized region. Biology Letters, 7(5), 763-766.
All publications
Journal articles
- Impact of a national guideline for the management of peripheral arterial disease on revascularization rates in England: interrupted time series analysis. BJS Open, 8(5). View this article in WRRO
- Time trends and geographical variation in major lower limb amputation related to peripheral arterial disease in England. BJS Open, 8(1).
- Time and Regional Trends in Hybrid Revascularisation for Patients With Lower Limb Ischaemia. EJVES Vascular Forum, 61, S7-S8.
- Socioeconomic disparities in surgery for carotid artery disease in England. BJS Open, 7(4).
- Lessons from beyond the lecture theatres: What is still unknown when it comes to nature-based intervention for university students’ wellbeing?. Digital Culture & Education, 14(4), 109-128.
- Urban centre green metrics in Great Britain: a geospatial and socioecological study. PLoS ONE, 17(11).
- Socioeconomic disparities in abdominal aortic aneurysm repair rates and survival.. Br J Surg.
- The influence of socio-demographic factors on preference and park usage in Guangzhou, China. Land, 11(8).
- Varicose veins treatment in England : population-based study of time trends and disparities related to demographic, ethnic, socioeconomic, and geographical factors. BJS Open, 6(4). View this article in WRRO
- Mapping urban greenspace use from mobile phone GPS data. PLoS ONE, 16(7). View this article in WRRO
- The restorative potential of commercial streets. Landscape Research. View this article in WRRO
- Nature’s role in supporting health during the COVID-19 pandemic: a geospatial and socioecological study. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 18(5). View this article in WRRO
- Assessing the feasibility of public engagement in a smartphone app to improve well-being through nature connection (Evaluación de la factibilidad de la implicación ciudadana mediante una app de teléfonos inteligentes para mejorar el bienestar a través de la conexión con la naturaleza). PsyEcology.
- The magic of the mundane: The vulnerable web of connections between urban nature and wellbeing. Cities, 108, 102989-102989.
- Neighbourhood greenspace influences on childhood obesity in Sheffield, UK. Pediatric Obesity, 15(7). View this article in WRRO
- Shmapped: development of an app to record and promote the well-being benefits of noticing urban nature.. Translational Behavioral Medicine, 10(3), 723-733. View this article in WRRO
- Let nature be thy medicine: A socioecological exploration of green prescribing in the UK. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(10). View this article in WRRO
- Where the wild things are! Do urban green spaces with greater avian biodiversity promote more positive emotions in humans?. Urban Ecosystems. View this article in WRRO
- Population-level linkages between urban greenspace and health inequality : the case for using multiple indicators of neighbourhood greenspace. Health & Place. View this article in WRRO
- Greenspace spatial characteristics and human health in an urban environment : an epidemiological study using landscape metrics in Sheffield, UK. Ecological Indicators, 106. View this article in WRRO
- A smartphone app for improving mental health through connecting with urban nature. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(18), 3373-3373. View this article in WRRO
- Measuring urban greenspace distribution equity : the importance of appropriate methodological approaches. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 8(6). View this article in WRRO
- Understanding the socioeconomic equity of publicly accessible greenspace distribution: The example of Sheffield, UK. Geoforum. View this article in WRRO
- Investigating behavioural and computational approaches for defining imprecise regions. Spatial Cognition and Computation, 19(2), 146-171. View this article in WRRO
- Is more always better? Exploring field survey and social media indicators of quality of urban greenspace, in relation to health. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 39, 45-54. View this article in WRRO
- Analysing objective and subjective data in social sciences: Implications for Smart Cities. IEEE Access. View this article in WRRO
- Alcohol outlet density and alcohol related hospital admissions in England: a national small-area level ecological study. Addiction, 113(11), 2051-2059. View this article in WRRO
- Domestic gardens and self-reported health: a national population study. International Journal of Health Geographics, 17. View this article in WRRO
- Generating vague neighbourhoods through data mining of passive web data. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 32(3), 498-523. View this article in WRRO
- New geographies of migrant settlement in the UK. Geography, 97(1), 29-38.
- Temporal changes in greenspace in a highly urbanized region. Biology Letters, 7(5), 763-766.
- Bayesian modelling of environmental risk: example using a small area ecological study of coronary heart disease mortality in relation to modelled outdoor nitrogen oxide levels. Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment, 21(5), 501-509.
- Outdoor NOx and stroke mortality: adjusting for small area level smoking prevalence using a Bayesian approach. Statistical Methods in Medical Research, 15(5), 499-516.
- Outdoor air pollution, mortality, and hospital admissions from coronary heart disease in Sheffield, UK: a small-area level ecological study. European Heart Journal, 26(23), 2543-2549.
- Outdoor Air Pollution and Stroke in Sheffield, United Kingdom. Stroke, 36(2), 239-243.
- The effect of alternative representations of population location on the areal interpolation of air pollution exposure. Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, 29(4), 455-469.
- My favourite software: Geographic Information Systems. Journal of Public Health, 24(2), 149-149.
- Comparison of urban green space usage and preferences: A case study approach of China and the UK. Landscape and Urban Planning, 249.
- Urban centre green metrics in Great Britain: A geospatial and socioecological study. PLOS ONE, 17(11), e0276962-e0276962.
Chapters
- From Modelling and Analysis of Accessibility of Urban Green Space to Green Infrastructure Planning: Guangzhou as a Case Study, The Urban Book Series (pp. 249-266). Springer International Publishing
- Creating a Corpus of Geospatial Natural Language, Spatial Information Theory (pp. 279-298). Springer International Publishing
- Crime map analyst: A GIS to support local-area crime reduction, GIS and Evidence-Based Policy Making (pp. 113-132).
- Crime Map Analyst, GIS and Evidence-Based Policy Making CRC Press
- Using Modeled Outdoor Air Pollution Data for Health Surveillance, GIS in Public Health Practice CRC Press
- Using Modelled Outdoor Air Pollution Data for Health In Maheswaran R & Craglia M (Ed.), GIS in Public Health Practice (pp. 125-150). CRC Press
Conference proceedings papers
- A comparison of GIS-based methods for modelling walking accessibility of parks in Guangzhou considering different population groups. Journal of Digital Landscape Architecture, Vol. 2022(7) (pp 269-279). Cambridge Mass, USA, 9 June 2022 - 10 June 2022.
- A data driven approach to mapping urban neighbourhoods. Proceedings of the 22nd ACM SIGSPATIAL International Conference on Advances in Geographic Information Systems - SIGSPATIAL '14, 4 November 2014 - 7 November 2014.
Reports
- 2011 Rural-Urban Classification of Local Authority Districts in England: Methodology
- 2011 Rural-Urban Classification of Local Authority Districts in England: Methodology
- Urban and Rural Area Definitions for Policy Purposes in England and Wales: Methodology
Preprints
- Urban centre green metrics in Great Britain: a geospatial and socioecological study. PLoS ONE, 17(11).
- Teaching activities
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LSC119 The Changing Landscape
LSC336 Landscape Planning Toolkits
LSC5020 Rural Landscape PlanningGIS workshops
LSC5010 Urban Landscape Planning
LSC6005 Special Project
LSC6310
LSC6113 Landscape Planning
- Professional activities and memberships
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Joint Director of Learning and Teaching