In The Netherlands “the land of water” the ecological quality of ponds, ditches, wetlands and lakes is severely degraded due to escalating and interacting anthropogenic pressures including pollutants and climate change. SEFAP unites leading Dutch freshwater experimentalists, infrastructures and data scientists to provide a step forward in collaborative science and inland water ecology. By conducting experiments in SMART-enabled replicated mini-lake ecosystems, SEFAP will enable the future of our waters to be experimentally created and tested. In combination, the technical innovation and community-building of Dutch aquatic experimentalists will strengthen the ability to predict and mitigate undesirable futures in aquatic ecosystems.

Soil carbon sequestration is an important but hardly understood mechanism counterbalancing atmospheric CO2 emissions and thereby climate change. An important biotic determinant of soil carbon transformations is mycorrhiza, a plant-fungal symbiosis featured by nearly all vascular plants on Earth. Mycorrhizae have different forms, among which arbuscular and ectomycorrhiza (AM and EM) are the most wide-spread. Using thorough experimentation and modeling, this project fillss the principle knowledge gap with regard to soil carbon accumulation processes: to reveal if and how AM and EM fungi differently affect soil carbon cycling.

VeenVitaal is a unique collaboration of scientists, nature managers/organizations, farmers and policy makers with the aim of making the peat meadow area in the Amsterdam region more sustainable. VeenVitaal investigates forms of nature-inclusive land use in the characteristic Dutch peat landscape that restores biodiversity, halt peat degradation, make business operation profitable for landowners and landscapes inspiring for citizens. VeenVitaal contributes new knowledge through integration of biodiversity, ecosystem and business data and aims to develop an integral set of simple/reliable indicators that quantifies the degree of landscape restoration with which we can monitor the transition to a sustainable peat bog landscape.

Unexpected infectious diseases outbreaks are increasingly common due to multiple global changes. The Netherlands, with its dense population of humans, livestock and poultry, international transport and travel hubs (Schiphol, Rotterdam), and unique water-dominated landscape is particularly vulnerable. A specific group of unexpected infectious disease outbreaks is transmitted through arthropods (e.g. mosquitoes), collectively termed vector-borne diseases (VBD). They have been expanding massively in (sub)tropical regions of the world through trade and habitat changes, but The Netherlands and Europe are vulnerable as well, as shown by recent outbreaks in livestock and birds. This proposal aims to develop a forward looking research agenda measuring and modelling how projected demographic, climatological, ecological, and planological changes will impact the risk of VBD-emergence for the Netherlands. Specific objectives are to: •Gain a fundamental understanding of interactions between the diversity of vectors, hosts, and viruses of priority-VBD; •Establish novel models on how these interactions are impacted by current and predicted changes in climate, water management, farming practices and importation risk; •Develop tools for rapid assessment of vector competence and disease severity •Develop tools and approaches to support outbreak research and surveillance •Develop novel interventions for VBD, based on integrated systems knowledge Our findings will be used to guide development of early warning systems and will provide tools for rapid assessment of risk of emerging-VBD to humans and animals. To allow deployment for use in regions with limited research infrastructure, fieldable versions of key assays will be developed. In case of a VBD-outbreak during the project, the consortium would be realigned to target the specific disease. This project is embedded within the Netherlands Centre for One Health, a collaboration between 9 research institutes to study health of humans, livestock, wildlife and environment in a holistic manner to address disease threats arising from these interactions.

The CurveBend project focuses on halting biodiversity loss and promoting a nature-positive society through collective action at the landscape level. It studies the spatial needs of animals for various habitats on a landscape scale, as well as the demands people place on different parts of the landscape, and seeks solutions for their mismatches in co-creation with societal partners. With "boots on the ground," CurveBend works in three livestock-dominated regions: the lowland meadows of the Netherlands, the Argentine pampas, and the savannas in Tanzania/Kenya, to find innovative, applicable solutions for biodiversity restoration at a landscape scale that inspire worldwide.