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We are facing a climate crisis accompanied by biodiversity loss. Sea level rise has a growing impact on low-lying coastal areas, also due to economic activities and population growth. These developments result in a decreasing extent of salt marshes in the coastal zone. Salt marshes are salt-tolerant ecosystems in the intertidal area. These ecosystems can attenuate waves, decrease coastal erosion and sequester carbon, whilst also preserving biodiversity. This research aims to quantify the contribution of constructed salt marshes to climate change adaptation and mitigation. Our findings will enable the sustainable protection of low-lying coastal areas and biodiversity through salt marshes.

Present use of the Dutch sandy-soil landscape is not sustainable and not climate proof. Hence there is an urgent and widely supported need for a socio-environmental transformation. We propose that in future landscape systems, functions at each location should align with local soil suitability and water availabililty. This requires a paradigm shift from the present system, where landscapes are modified through e.g. water management and fertilization to serve desired functions. With our research team and consortium of experts and actors, we will design nature-based landscapes that are climate-resilient and valuable and we will identify pathways towards these desired landscapes.

The challenge- Tropical forests are global hotspots of biodiversity, play key roles in the global carbon and water cycle and deliver crucial ecosystem services but are threatened by deforestation and global change. We focus on forests that regrow after complete forest removal for agriculture (“secondary forests”-SF), because they cover large areas, have great potential to recover biodiversity and carbon, and are the basis for ecosystem restoration. The key challenge is to quantify and understand forest resilience: to what extent are regrowing forests able to recover and deliver the same quality and services as old-growth forests? Aims- This study aims to 1) quantify the resilience of different forest attributes, 2) analyse the environmental and anthropogenic drivers and mechanisms of resilience, 3) analyse community assembly using a trait-based approach. Approach- A recent disciplinary breakthrough offers exciting opportunities for progress and novel insights. We will use a unique network of 45 sites with recovering forests across Latin America to quantify resilience for forests across the continent. Impact- This research will provide insight into the resilience of tropical forests and its underlying mechanisms at an unprecedented spatiotemporal scale. The results allow to make evidence-based decisions for managing secondary succession as the natural engine of forest restoration, and for designing effective forest restoration strategies.

Food production in Acholi / West Nile region, Northern Uganda is constrained by labour constraints, unsustainable soil fertility management and vulnerability to climate change. Consequently, rural households are food insecure and trends are that their access to food will worsen further. Some farmers have themselves developed a range of promising initiatives in the domain of Conservation Agriculture (CA). This research project will first establish the relationship between these promising initiatives, the productivity of the farming systems, and the sustainability and resilience of its land management. Secondly, the project will identify and develop methods for improving the effectiveness, sustainability and resilience of the local CA initiatives. This will be done with the local farmers and rural extension services, in various rounds of participatory on-farm field testing, evaluations and fine-tuning. Thirdly, capacity building trajectories will be pursued for extension services and best methods will be incorporated in the farmer support and dissemination mechanisms.