Research into air pollution in Chinese cities and analysis of the Tibetan plateau environment by Department of Urban Science in the College of Applied Arts and Sciences of BUU have been awarded the prestigious Essential Scientific Indicators (ESI) accreditation after they were widely cited by leading academics.

Associate professor Wang Juan and graduate student Ji Huimin published their work in Environmental Research entitled ‘Research on adaption to air pollution in Chinese cities: Evidence from social media-based health analysis’.

The paper: Research on adaption to air pollution in Chinese cities: Evidence from social media-based health sensing

Based on social media Weibo big data, the paper comprehensively reveals the impact of air pollution on human health and quantifies the spatial heterogeneity of the association between health perception and air pollution in 70 Chinese cities. Its main findings include: Weibo data can accurately perceive the health perception of urban people in real time; and there is significant spatial heterogeneity in the sensitivity of Chinese residents to air pollution. At the same time, this study provides new perspectives and methods for health perception and the impact of air pollution on health. Since its publication in July 2022, the paper has attracted widespread attention from peers emphasising its high academic influence.

Meanwhile Dr. An Shuai published ‘Mismatch in elevational shifts between satellite observed vegetation greenness and temperature isolines during 2000–2016 on the Tibetan Plateau’ in Global Change Biology. It was also selected as an ESI Highly Cited Paper in 2022.

The paper: Mismatch in elevational shifts between satellite observed vegetation greenness and temperature isolines during 2000–2016 on the Tibetan Plateau

These two developments clearly indicate that the research level and innovation ability of the Department of Urban Science in the fields of geographic big data mining and health perception have been recognized and affirmed by international peers.

ESI highly cited papers refer to all papers published in the same ESI discipline in the same year, sorted by the number of citations from highest to lowest, ranking in the top one per cent. ESI is a database of essential scientific indicators, an important tool for measuring the impact of research institutions, journals and papers. The database updates the data every two months, and selection thresholds are determined based on references in various fields and years.

Included in the ESI Highly Cited Paper Search Report

The Department of Urban Science of the College of Applied Arts and Sciences has long attached great importance to discipline construction and scientific research work, and also pays great attention to the training of young teachers, the corresponding authors of the two ESI highly cited papers are young teachers who have joined in recent years, in the future, the Department of Urban Science will continue to vigorously support young teachers to carry out high-level, high-quality, high-impact scientific research, and make greater contributions to the development of disciplines and talent training in our university.

TEXT: Wang Juan