Urban Environment

The interview explores Dr. Mengyi Jin’s personal and academic connection to water and space technologies, starting from how she relates to water both personally and professionally. During her PhD in Civil Engineering, she focused on how urban form and green infrastructure influence environmental quality, looking at fine-scale variations of air pollution, temperature, and humidity within cities. Her research used mobile monitoring combined with spatial analysis and satellite data to understand how environmental conditions change from place to place. Dr. Jin highlights the links between air quality and the water cycle, noting that aerosols affect cloud formation, rainfall, and evapotranspiration, and that air pollution can enter water bodies and lead to water contamination. She also explains how nature-based solutions, such as urban green spaces and wetlands, can address climate and environmental challenges in a sustainable way, and how satellites support these solutions by monitoring vegetation, land cover, water bodies, and atmospheric pollutants. Her experience in the EU project GoGreenRoutes illustrates how green infrastructure contributes to sustainable development by improving environmental and social conditions in cities. Although the project focuses mainly on green elements, blue spaces like green riverbanks or wetlands can also play a complementary role. She notes that space technologies are not the main monitoring method in the project, but can serve as a valuable supplement. Looking ahead, Dr. Jin sees space-based technologies, combined with in situ measurements, as essential for understanding environmental change at multiple scales. She also emphasizes cross-disciplinary thinking, open data, and collaboration as key drivers of innovation in environmental research.

The interview explores Dr. Mengyi Jin’s personal and academic connection to water and space technologies, starting from how she relates to water both personally and professionally. During her PhD in Civil Engineering, she focused on how urban form and green infrastructure influence environmental quality, looking at fine-scale variations of air pollution, temperature, and humidity within cities. Her research used mobile monitoring combined with spatial analysis and satellite data to understand how environmental conditions change from place to place. Dr. Jin highlights the links between air quality and the water cycle, noting that aerosols affect cloud formation, rainfall, and evapotranspiration, and that air pollution can enter water bodies and lead to water contamination. She also explains how nature-based solutions, such as urban green spaces and wetlands, can address climate and environmental challenges in a sustainable way, and how satellites support these solutions by monitoring vegetation, land cover, water bodies, and atmospheric pollutants. Her experience in the EU project GoGreenRoutes illustrates how green infrastructure contributes to sustainable development by improving environmental and social conditions in cities. Although the project focuses mainly on green elements, blue spaces like green riverbanks or wetlands can also play a complementary role. She notes that space technologies are not the main monitoring method in the project, but can serve as a valuable supplement. Looking ahead, Dr. Jin sees space-based technologies, combined with in situ measurements, as essential for understanding environmental change at multiple scales. She also emphasizes cross-disciplinary thinking, open data, and collaboration as key drivers of innovation in environmental research.