David Alvarez Castro

• EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Geospatial Systems
• Email: d.alvarez2@ncl.ac.uk

Project description

I am part of the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT) in Geospatial Systems. This is a 1 + 3 PhD and 2019/20 is the first year, which is an MRes in Geospatial Data Science.

I do not have a selected topic at the moment but I would like to focus on smart cities.

My goal is to develop real and practical geospatial application technologies to help cities to be more resilient, greener and self-contained. New technologies are key to achieving new ways to evolve in a more sustainable environment. These include:

• reducing congestion
• finding alternatives for traffic junctions
• knowing where to find free parking spots in real time
• optimising the use of lighting and reducing greenhouse effects related to transportation

They can all also be beneficial for social inclusion. They make life easier for people with disabilities by providing them with the opportunity to travel in a safer and more comfortable manner.

Around half of the population lives in cities. This increases every year, which means that the management of cities is crucial to ensure quality, health and safety in people’s lives. Putting geospatial technologies in society’s hands could lead to improvements in mobility, quality of life, and resilience.

Interests

• new technologies
• cartography
• data visualisation

Qualifications

• BEng in Survey Engineering, Technical University of Madrid, Spain (2007 – 2011)
• MSc in Geodesy and Cartography, Technical University of Madrid, Spain (2011 – 2013)