Research Areas and Tools

The SURF Lab focuses on three core research areas:

1. Food Systems - Food is an immense driver of environmental change. Some of the topics we have researched in the past: environmental impacts of diets; local/urban agriculture; meat consumption; urban-rural teleconnections. 
2. Built Form and Resource Use - Spatial relationships between buildings and infrastructure influence transport patterns, energy use, and other aspects of a city's metabolism. Some of the topics we have researched in the past: household energy use; urban agriculture; stormwater abatement; urban symbiosis and industrial symbiosis. 
3. Agri-Food Supply Chains - Supply chains are the physical architecture that provide cities with resources and connect cities to distant corners of the planet. Some of the topics we have studied in the past: avocado exports from the Mexico to the U.S.; beef supply chains in California; natural rubber supply chains in Sri Lanka; hardwood flooring sold in the U.S. and deforestation in the Russian Far East.

We believe in a multi-methods approach to exploring urban sustainability. Below are some of the tools we have used in the past. If you use these tools or have the will and prerequisites for learning these tools, then the SURF Lab might be a good fit for you. 

• Life cycle assessment
• Environmentally-Extended Input-Output Analysis
• Machine Learning
• Remote Sensing Data and Spatial Science
• Geographic Information Systems
• System Dynamics
• Material Flow Analysis
• Network Science and Graph Theory
• Linear Optimization Programming
• Interviews
• Surveys

We are, of course, open to alternative and emerging methods. This is just a list of tools we have previously used.. 

We are part of the Department of Bioresource Engineering in the Faculty of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. We are located on the beautiful Macdonald Campus of McGill University in Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec on the Island of Montréal.

Although part of an engineering department, we embrace interdisciplinary scholarship. Lead researcher, Benjamin Goldstein, has worked in Architecture Departments and Environmental Studies Schools, and prizes the value of bringing multiple perspectives to bear on the wicked problems of urban sustainability.

It is becoming increasingly clear that negative environmental change is borne unequally by different peoples and different places. New technologies and engineering solutions alone cannot adequately address historical and existing environmental inequities. As William Gibson said, "The future is here - it is just not very evenly distributed." As such, the SURF Lab folds questions of equity and justice into our quantitative research in order to move beyond engineering accounting exercises and as a way to understand how structures of power produce winners and losers in terms of environmental outcomes and resource access.