Generality is aspired by pooling information from a sample of
real-world cities to inform the development of a typical urban area
rather than building a representation of a specific city. This
generalisation of information allows to explore broad trends rather
than unique or outlier observations specific to one city. At the same
time, SIENA strives to maximise realism by rooting its development
on structural and design rules obtained from the statistical exploration
of these real-world cities. It was developed probabilistically
which has the additional advantage that the uncertainties inherent
in environmental data can be accounted for by allowing a range of
values rather than a single value.
SIENA offers a novel tool to address some of the fundamental
challenges faced by environmental health studies in urban settings.
Possible applications of this user-controlled urban simulation
model in the context of exposure science and health risk assessment
are many. They include: