Early explorers called it Africa's Great Rift Valley, a narrow strip that runs for thousands of kilometres from Djibouti to Mozambique and is perhaps most famous for the vast herds of the Serengeti, mountain gorillas and dramatic landscapes of high peaks and fertile plains. The mountains and valleys are the signs of a continent slowly tearing apart. Moving apart more slowly than your finger nails grow, the African continent will one day split into two, creating a new ocean. As the Earth's crust stretches and thins - like plasticine when you pull it - rocks melt, and the resulting magma rises to the surface. The resultant eruptions have had a dramatic and varied impact on the landscape: great lakes have filled the holes left by enormous eruptions; eruptions of volcanic glass have created a chain of peaks, and wide fields are filled with scattered cones and lava flows. This volcanic landscape is hazardous - a recent report for the World Bank ranked 49 of Ethiopia's 65 volcanoes in the highest category of hazard uncertainty. The high temperatures associated with magma in the Rift Valley make it a rich source of carbon-neutral geothermal power. Multi-billion dollar investments by development agencies are driving a ten-fold expansion in the geothermal infrastructure in East Africa over the next decade. However, the majority of scientific research has focussed on volcanoes in other tectonic settings, such as Hawaii and Japan, leaving the volcanoes of the East African Rift largely a mystery. For many of them, we can't even say when the last eruption look place and there is no monitoring equipment to detect the early stages of an upcoming eruption. The eruption of Nabro volcano in 2011 was a timely reminder of the potential threats. Situated on the frontier between Ethiopia and Eritrea, the area is remote and sparsely populated, yet the eruption caused 32 fatalities, displaced >5000 people and disrupted regional aviation. Had this eruption originated from one of other 29 volcanoes with the same perceived hazard, but in densely-populated central Ethiopia, the humanitarian and societal cost would have been considerable. RiftVolc will focus on the volcanoes of the Main Ethiopian Rift in central Ethiopia. The aim is to understand their past behaviour, look for subtle signs of present-day activity and assess the threat posed to the infrastructure and people on and around them. RiftVolc will involve scientists from many disciplines working together to produce an integrated view of the past, present and future of the volcanoes in this region and compare it to other parts of East Africa and volcanoes elsewhere. Together we will spend several months out in Ethiopia, collecting samples, mapping the geology and deploying geophysical instruments, before returning to the lab to use analyse the data and create computer models of the results. Petrologists and geochemists will look at the lavas and ash to figure out the timing, size and style of past eruptions. Geophysicists will look for tiny earthquakes, changes in gravity, the passage of electrical currents and movements of the Earth's surface to understand the plumbing system feeding the volcanoes today. Finally, experts in hazard assessment will model possible scenarios and create a long-range eruption forecast for Ethiopia. We will work with our colleagues in the University of Addis Ababa and the Geological Survey of Ethiopia to ensure our findings are appropriate communicated to the government, industry and people of Ethiopia and with international groups such as the Global Volcano Model to communicate our results to development agencies such as the UN and the World Bank.

The volume of groundwater in Africa is more than 100 times the annual renewable freshwater resource and 20 times the amount of freshwater stored in lakes, but its productive use in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) remains low. Global abstraction of groundwater increased tenfold between 1950 and 2000 and contributed significantly to growth in irrigation particularly in Asia. The global area equipped for irrigation has been estimated as 301 Mha of which 38% depends on groundwater, but for sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) only 5.7% of the irrigated area is supported by groundwater. Just as in Asia, rapid expansion of groundwater irrigation may be about to occur in SSA. Although evidence from Asia suggests that groundwater irrigation promotes greater inter-personal, inter-gender, inter-class and spatial equity than is found under large scale canal irrigation, there is a significant risk that rapid development of groundwater resources in SSA may lead to inequitable resource use. There is a need for research to deliver the evidence and appropriate tools to support sustainable resource management and to assure access to groundwater resources by poor people. This research will address the following questions: 1: How and at what rate is groundwater being recharged? Deliverable: improved understanding of recharge processes at local and catchment scale; including consideration of influence of land use and water harvesting. 2: Can a tool be developed to help decision makers manage the resource? Deliverable: tools developed and tested at local (community) and catchment scales to assist decision makers in managing groundwater resources. 3: What are the implications of changes in land use? Deliverable: improved understanding of evidence base for influence of land use, water harvesting and green water flows on groundwater recharge. 4: What are the implications of climate change? Deliverable: tools for downscaling climate data and constructing scenarios developed and likely influence on recharge processes investigated. 5: How can policy and practice assure livelihood benefits for poor people? Deliverable: improved understanding of issues affecting access to and control of groundwater for productive use in irrigated agriculture. 6: What governance approaches are most likely to deliver equitable and sustainable use of groundwater? Deliverable: participatory evaluation of institutional change required at local community level and at national/catchment level to achieve equitable and sustainable use of groundwater in irrigated agriculture. Preliminary research will be delivered over a 1 year period by a multi-disciplinary research team from Newcastle University and the International Water Management Institute together with local partners in Ethiopia, Ghana and South Africa. This will deliver a pilot study and build the research consortium. The pilot study in Ethiopia will address both technical and social/governance aspects of groundwater resource assessment and management from the regional to the local scale. Lake Tana basin has been selected as a suitable site. In parallel, additional exploratory research will be conducted in Ethiopia, Ghana and South Africa. Key stakeholders will be invited to participate in consultations at in-country workshops aimed at understanding current state of knowledge around groundwater resources. Critical knowledge gaps likely to influence design of follow-up research will be identified and in-country collaborators will be commissioned to carry out short term studies. At the end of the 1-year catalyst grant project collaborating scientists representing partners from SSA together with UNEW and IWMI will meet for 3-day workshop in Addis Ababa in order to review lessons learned and agree design of the follow-on 4-year research project.