Diogo Jose Sousa Lopes, a Portuguese doctoral student of civil engineering from the University of Macau (UM) Faculty of Science and Technology (FST), has passed the oral defense for his PhD thesis titled ‘Development of a Multi-Scale Air Pollution Modelling System’, which is part of the All-in-One research project jointly conducted by UM and the University of Aveiro (UA) in Portugal. Lopes developed an all-in-one air quality modelling system by integrating models ranging from regional to local scales to assess the changes in air quality as a result of transboundary pollution, urban air pollution, and road traffic emissions within street canyons of building clusters. The modelling system can be a useful tool in formulating air-quality management strategies by identifying different air pollution processes in the design and assessment of air-pollution control measures.

The oral defense was chaired by Prof Rui Martins, vice rector (global affairs) of UM. Other examination committee members included Prof Carlos Borrego from UA, as well as Prof Li Yongjie and Prof Peter Zhang Ping from UM. Lopes’s work was highly praised by Prof Borrego, who has over 40 years of experience working on environmental issues and is serving on a number of national and international scientific boards, committees, and evaluation panels of research institutions and projects in Portugal. He considered Lopes’s thesis to be very good, excellent even, when compared with other theses he has supervised or examined, adding that the thesis presented innovative perspectives.

Lopes’s research and thesis were jointly supervised by Prof Mok Kai Meng from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UM and Prof Ana Isabel Miranda from the Department of Environment and Planning at UA in Portugal. The All-In-One project was funded by the Science and Technology Development Fund of Macao. This is the latest collaboration between UM and UA since the partnership began in 1998.