Earthquakes are a major threat to lives, livelihoods, and economic development in China. Of the 2-2.5 million deaths in earthquakes worldwide since 1900, at least 650,000 have occurred in China. Chinese earthquakes have caused three of the ten highest death tolls in earthquakes since 1900 and have led to estimated losses of $678 billion (in 2012 USD). The 2008 Wenchuan earthquake alone caused direct economic losses of more than RMB840 billion, despite affecting largely rural areas of Sichuan province and causing only minor damage to the provincial capital of Chengdu. A future earthquake in China could cause catastrophic losses, and disaster risk reduction (DRR) efforts in China are therefore of critical importance. Local communities play a critical role in DRR preparation and planning. In the immediate aftermath of a large earthquake, communities are often cut off from outside resources and assistance, and must rely on their own plans and capacities. This is especially true of communities in remote or mountainous areas like northwestern China. While DRR planning in China has traditionally followed a very centralised approach, there is growing recognition of the importance of community-based disaster risk reduction (CBDRR) efforts. Most notably, the Ministry of Civil Affairs has embarked on a major programme to establish a network of thousands of 'demonstration communities' that have met minimum requirements for local-scale disaster preparedness. The proposed research is specifically aimed at supporting and enhancing the MoCA programme. Our work will ensure that it draws on broad scientific knowledge of the hazard, including secondary earthquake hazards such as landslides. Our work will also explore the factors that make communities more or less willing to engage in CBDRR, so that the MoCA programme can best reflect the broad diversity of communities that are exposed to that hazard. We will first look at the ways in which CBDRR is achieved in China, and how these approaches compare to those in other earthquake-prone countries. At the same time, we will produce a new inventory of landslides in northwestern China (an area that includes Gansu, Shaanxi, and Ningxia provinces), and will generate new knowledge on the sizes and effects of past landslides as a guide to landslide hazard in future earthquakes. Finally, we will work with two specific communities to find out their priority concerns and their awareness of the hazards that they face, and to come up with ideas for how they might deal with those hazards in a future earthquake. The emphasis of our work will be on sustained engagement with groups of engaged citizens to come up with solutions that will work in their communities. The goal throughout will be to take a community-centred approach to understanding the choices that people make to protect themselves from earthquakes. The project will lead to (1) new knowledge of landslide hazard in the region; (2) better understanding of the factors that help communities to engage with DRR issues; and (3) strategies for local earthquake resilience that complement and extend the National Five-Year Plans for Comprehensive Disaster Reduction. By increasing resilience at the community level to the damaging earthquakes that will surely occur across this region in future, the project will make a direct contribution to sustainable growth and economic welfare. The research and training that we propose will increase local capacity to assess and plan for the effects of future earthquakes. Finally, China has engaged in constructive cooperation in south-south exchanges of knowledge in DRR, e.g. through the CBDM Asia project. We are keen to contribute to these exchanges and wider economic development of the region by sharing the outcomes of this research with partners in other earthquake-prone countries across Asia.

Led by the MENA Social Policy Network, University of Bath, www.menasp.com (founded in 2012 and convened by Jawad, PI), in partnership with the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), this proposal brings together a host of UK and international research leaders and partner organisations to undertake an ambitious programme of cross-disciplinary innovation and capability development in the governance of social policy in MENA. The distinctive contribution this network will make is to introduce a paradigm shift in MENA conflict prevention research, policy and practice that will enhance the social welfare politics of Arab countries in the Sothern Mediterranean region (Levant and North Africa) - our geographical focus. These are ODA compliant countries, the highest exporters of economic migration to Europe and historically, at the nexus of armed conflict in MENA. The Network management team includes expertise in ethics, mental health and disability, Middle East history, anthropology, urban planning and the environment, gender, visual arts and education. Our Network vision is: to demonstrate, through a mutually supportive framework of innovative, cross-disciplinary research and capacity development for policy change, how effective social policy governance in MENA can provide nuanced and contextualised pathways to peace and emerging localised solution-driven initiatives. We will do this through a programme of work that will serve GCRF goals as follows: (1) maximising the impact of Co-I-led proof of concepts and an £800,000's worth of LMIC and UK-led commissioned research strand that is co-designed with LMIC partners and builds on localised expertise; (2) fostering shared learning across innovative peacebuilding research projects and testing the feasibility, scalability, transferability and effectiveness of different approaches across diverse fragile MENA countries; (3) bringing conflict prevention research more centrally into sustainable development planning and programming through the apparatus of social policy governance and its affiliated concept of social protection thereby addressing directly SDGs 1, 3 (reduce poverty; achieve wellbeing across life course), 5 (achieve gender equality), 10 (reduce inequalities) and 11 (promote inclusive peace). Our aims are: (1) Cross-disciplinary innovation: to improve knowledge bases and practices in conflict prevention and sustainable peace in MENA by focusing on the interconnections between community-level social justice grievances and the macro-level governance of social policy; (2) Capacity development of existing research and policy practice: we will support policy learning and "design thinking" such as through policy labs, social policy governance seminars and an e-learning course for policy-makers. We argue that there is momentum for a fresh and expanded reassessment of the nature and scope of conflict in MENA which directly addresses the long-overlooked question of community-level social justice grievances and how these react against or are reproduced by macro-level political decision-making. We will advance current knowledge and practice by showing how conflict prevention and social policy governance share common concerns: how to enable communities to live cohesively and share resources equitably. This is a fundamentally cross-disciplinary question about state-society relations, otherwise referred to in the contemporary international development literature as "political settlements". It is an issue of relevance to volatile MENA countries that are now implementing austerity policies at a time when they are also mandated to produce national development plans supporting the universal social protection vision of the SDG 2030 agenda. The challenges of social and income inequality in MENA are stark: in a 2015 report, the World Bank acknowledged the need to address the "quality of life" grievances that had fueled the Arab uprisings.

Led by the MENA Social Policy Network, University of Bath, www.menasp.com (founded in 2012 and convened by Jawad, PI), in partnership with the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), this proposal brings together a host of UK and international research leaders and partner organisations to undertake an ambitious programme of cross-disciplinary innovation and capability development in the governance of social policy in MENA. The distinctive contribution this network will make is to introduce a paradigm shift in MENA conflict prevention research, policy and practice that will enhance the social welfare politics of Arab countries in the Sothern Mediterranean region (Levant and North Africa) - our geographical focus. These are ODA compliant countries, the highest exporters of economic migration to Europe and historically, at the nexus of armed conflict in MENA. The Network management team includes expertise in ethics, mental health and disability, Middle East history, anthropology, urban planning and the environment, gender, visual arts and education. Our Network vision is: to demonstrate, through a mutually supportive framework of innovative, cross-disciplinary research and capacity development for policy change, how effective social policy governance in MENA can provide nuanced and contextualised pathways to peace and emerging localised solution-driven initiatives. We will do this through a programme of work that will serve GCRF goals as follows: (1) maximising the impact of Co-I-led proof of concepts and an £800,000's worth of LMIC and UK-led commissioned research strand that is co-designed with LMIC partners and builds on localised expertise; (2) fostering shared learning across innovative peacebuilding research projects and testing the feasibility, scalability, transferability and effectiveness of different approaches across diverse fragile MENA countries; (3) bringing conflict prevention research more centrally into sustainable development planning and programming through the apparatus of social policy governance and its affiliated concept of social protection thereby addressing directly SDGs 1, 3 (reduce poverty; achieve wellbeing across life course), 5 (achieve gender equality), 10 (reduce inequalities) and 11 (promote inclusive peace). Our aims are: (1) Cross-disciplinary innovation: to improve knowledge bases and practices in conflict prevention and sustainable peace in MENA by focusing on the interconnections between community-level social justice grievances and the macro-level governance of social policy; (2) Capacity development of existing research and policy practice: we will support policy learning and "design thinking" such as through policy labs, social policy governance seminars and an e-learning course for policy-makers. We argue that there is momentum for a fresh and expanded reassessment of the nature and scope of conflict in MENA which directly addresses the long-overlooked question of community-level social justice grievances and how these react against or are reproduced by macro-level political decision-making. We will advance current knowledge and practice by showing how conflict prevention and social policy governance share common concerns: how to enable communities to live cohesively and share resources equitably. This is a fundamentally cross-disciplinary question about state-society relations, otherwise referred to in the contemporary international development literature as "political settlements". It is an issue of relevance to volatile MENA countries that are now implementing austerity policies at a time when they are also mandated to produce national development plans supporting the universal social protection vision of the SDG 2030 agenda. The challenges of social and income inequality in MENA are stark: in a 2015 report, the World Bank acknowledged the need to address the "quality of life" grievances that had fueled the Arab uprisings.

The ecosystem services approach emphasises the many ways nature sustains and enriches people's lives. Valuation of ecosystem services can contribute to ecosystem conservation and human wellbeing. For these efforts to result in poverty alleviation, however, scientists must tackle the relationship between ecosystem services and wellbeing with reference to environmental justice. Ecosystem services tend to benefit some stakeholders more than others. Decision making in ecosystem management is likely to involve some more than others. Can those winner and losers be identified and their responses anticipated? Can the involved social tradeoffs be mapped, just as ecological tradeoffs between competing environmental services, to support ecosystem conservation and poverty alleviation? Recognition of ecological and social tradeoffs is a crucial precondition for just ecosystem management, i.e. ecosystem management that distributes ecosystem services fairly and includes all stakeholders in decision making. The proposed research serves the overarching goal to promote just ecosystem management as a new and innovative concept. The project will contribute to the overarching goal by developing a novel conceptual framework to guide research and practice. Its specific objectives are to (1) incorporate attention to multiple stakeholders and socio-ecological tradeoffs into the ecosystem services approach, (2) analyse the justice dimensions of critical changes in ecosystem services in the management of water, health, forests, biodiversity and coastal ecosystems, and (3) illustrate key justice dimensions in the management of selected coastal and terrestrial ecosystems in China, India and Central Africa. The project is intended to influence future research conducted in multiple academic fields on the feedbacks between ecosystem services and human wellbeing. The conceptual framework will show researchers how to approach long-established topics in their respective fields from new, interdisciplinary perspectives and point out concrete opportunities for linking up with research conducted in other fields. Conservation biologists will recognise new ways to integrate social tradeoffs into their analyses by looking at the distribution of ecosystem services among stakeholders, and by attending to the participation of different stakeholders in decisions over ecosystems. Political economists will benefit from the system-based understanding of 'nature' and the attention to ecological tradeoffs. Ecological economists will gain important insights for the development of new valuation methods which respond to underlying social inequalities and capture ecological tradeoffs. In this way, the research will make a critical contribution to the development of new interdisciplinary understanding of the relationship between ecosystems and human wellbeing that acknowledges the significance of ecological, social and socio-ecological tradeoffs equally. Just ecosystem management will directly benefit poor and socially excluded people dependent upon ecosystem services living in developing countries. Equitable distribution will strengthen the contributions of ecosystem services to poverty alleviation, with particular benefits accruing to people dependent on these services. Inclusive decision making in ecosystem management will allow participation by stakeholders typically excluded due to differences in wealth, race, gender, etc. Just ecosystem management will facilitate stakeholders to recognise, deliberate and respond to ecological, social and socio-ecological tradeoffs together. The project will promote just ecosystem management by engaging UK and international policy-making organisations, policy-making organisations in China, India and Central Africa and organisations implementing conservation and development projects in the three sites of Yunnan, Orissa and the Albertine Rift.

Layperson Summary (4000 characters max.) The world's major river deltas are hotspots of agricultural production that support rural livelihoods and feed much of the global population, but as 'climate change hot spots' deltas are facing a major sustainability crisis. Specifically, there are concerns that many deltas may in the coming decades be 'drowned' by rising sea levels as the oceans warm (up to 20% of land is projected to be lost in the major deltas of south and southeast Asia alone). The process of delta 'drowning' is a slow onset hazard where relative sea-level rise progressively exacerbates fluvial and coastal flood risk while simultaneously enhancing saline intrusion. However, progressive environmental change is punctuated by the occurrence of extreme weather events such as droughts or extreme rainfall and climate models project that these will occur more frequently. The co-occurrence of slow onset hazards with extreme events creates a 'perfect storm' that makes agriculture ever more challenging, but we have almost no insight into how slow onset changes interact with extreme events. A key question is the extent (much like a boxer 'softening up' her opponent with repeated body blows before landing the knockout punch) to which, in systems facing progressive reductions in resilience as a result of ongoing change, the additional burdens caused by occasional but damaging climatic extremes may cause a 'tipping point' to be crossed which makes it difficult for agricultural production to recover after severe episodes of drought or flooding. This is a critical issue because if we cannot correctly attribute the cause of major change we run the risk that 'solutions' will also be applied incorrectly. In this project we will develop a new model to examine how agricultural production and livelihoods are affected by combinations of progressive environmental change punctuated by extreme weather events. In particular we will focus on episodes of drought and flooding. Flooding is the most dangerous and costly of natural hazards, accounting for over 500,000 fatalities and economic losses of more than $1 trillion since 1980. Their low lying nature, alongside their location at the interface between coastal and fluvial environments means that deltas are disproportionately exposed to these risks. However, in the developing world, where agricultural production forms the mainstay of national economies and is central to livelihoods, drought can be a key driver of water and food (in)security, but we know significantly less about how droughts develop, persist and recover. We will further our understanding of the vulnerability of delta systems to extreme events by exploring how crop production and livelihoods are affected by the interplay between episodes of drought and flooding and ongoing environmental stress linked to upstream catchment management and climate change. Our project is focused on the world's third largest delta, the Mekong. The Mekong delta is SE Asia's rice basket and home to almost 20 million people, but it is exposed to severe environmental risks as a result of climate change and rapid economic development. We will collaborate with our Vietnamese partners, including in key government agencies, to bring UK expertise in (i) the modelling of droughts and floods; (ii) agricultural livelihoods; (iii) participatory stakeholder engagement processes and (iv) social-ecological systems dynamics to bear on this challenge. We will define policy relevant scenarios of future change and quantify the links between drought and flooding and agricultural livelihoods, delivering an integrated assessment of the factors driving changes to livelihoods and explore the effects that adaptations could make to help make the Mekong delta more resilient to climatic extremes. This will be done within a globally significant, iconic, delta, providing a template for similar analyses in other vulnerable deltas of the Global South.