Flooding is a major problem in the UK as recent high profile events in the summers of 2006 and 2007 have shown. In these events the damage to property and belongings ran into billions of pounds and a number of people were injured or lost their lives in these events. Therefore, predicting the location and severity of flooding is extremely important in preventing these losses. Current computer models for predicting flooding are highly accurate, but take a very long time to run even on the fastest computers. This project intends to use a technique known as cellular automata, a model based on the localised interactions of small cells, to simulate flooding in such a way that it will be possible to run complicated scenarios on a standard PC. The new approach will gain efficiency by making use of the fact that each cell can only 'see' the cells closest to it and the project will investigate the best ways of allowing each cell to communicate with its neighbours. The approach will be tested over a number of different flooding scenarios and compared with existing methodologies to demonstrate its accuracy and increased efficiency over standard methods.

Piped drainage systems form the backbone of urban drainage infrastructure, both in terms of foul and surface water drainage. The piped systems located in the upstream reaches of urban drainage networks include those installed within buildings and those local systems that connect buildings and their curtilages to the main sewer network; examples of local systems range from those serving a single residential property to those draining large retail parks. The purpose of this research is to improve the simulation of flow conditions within such systems, and hence facilitate the development of the integrated design methodologies required to meet the extra demands associated with the future impacts of climate change and water conservation measures.Flow conditions within building and local drainage systems are often complex, partly due to the highly unsteady nature of system inflows and partly due to their relatively complex and compact layouts; in particular, such systems commonly experience mixed flow conditions, characterised by both free surface and full bore flow regions separated by a hydraulic jump. In spite of this complexity, and the underlying importance of such systems to all sections of society, there are currently no numerical models available to accurately simulate the full range of mixed flow conditions that occur within building and local drainage systems. Without the ability to simulate such conditions, the challenges presented by system design to accommodate transitional flows can not be fully understood, and thus performance benefits remain unrealised. Whilst this situation is undesirable under current loading conditions, the consequences of these shortcomings is bound to increase in the future. It is now generally accepted that climate change will increase the frequency and severity of extreme rainfall events, and will hence result in increased surcharging of drainage systems conveying stormwater. Additional demands will also be placed on building and local drainage infrastructure due to changing demographics, increasing urbanisation and decreasing confidence in the long term viability of existing water supplies; these factors will lead to an increased emphasis on water conservation, as already highlighted by imminent changes to UK Building Regulations (which are likely to set minimum standards for water efficiency within buildings). There is clearly a very real need for enhanced tools to enable the wide range of stakeholders to develop the type of integrated designs necessary to meet both current and future performance requirements. The proposed research aims to meet this need by developing improved simulation models. The project will commence with a benchmarking exercise to assess the state of the art of mixed flow modelling. This will include the identification and experimental quantification of the key physical process, as well as a thorough assessment of existing techniques and their suitability to building and local drainage applications. These initial investigations will help drive model development activities, which will concentrate on formulating a novel numerical technique for the simulation of mixed flow conditions within small-medium diameter piped drainage systems (up to approximately 200mm). The developed technique will be incorporated into 1-D finite difference models for the simulation of conditions within building and local drainage systems. Dissemination of project findings will be critical in order to persuade relevant stakeholders of the benefits associated with the developed techniques and models, and to encourage uptake of the project recommendations and tools. In addition to traditional academic dissemination routes (journal and conference papers), project outcomes will also be publicised to a wider audience through presentations and seminars to professional bodies, industry organisations and wider research initiatives.

At its core our proposal will explore the role of creativity (film, music, soundscapes, visual arts, craft traditions) inspired by cultural assets (townscape heritage, coastal landscape setting and links to UNESCO World Heritage in mainland Tanzania, Zanzibar and the UK). This enhances and magnifies the impact of our AHRC 'Fragmented Heritage/ Curious Travellers' methodology that combines photographic imagery (crowd-sourced/ web-scraped and new imagery) together with mobile mapping data to digitally document cultural heritage sites in context, as an approach that anticipates change, given diverse challenges that place heritage at risk. The project will draw from Bagamoyo's rich heritage and cultural traditions, given Bagamoyo's strategic coastal location, with trading links across the Indian Ocean, past, present and future - including its boat-building traditions, role with salt production and the spice trade; the slave and ivory trade; its colonial past and linkage both with Christianity and Islam - the entry of Christianity into the interior; and with historical figures including Dr Livingstone whose body was brought to Bagamoyo upon his death in Malawi. Digital heritage researchers and creative researchers at Bradford and St Andrews will co-create artistic works with heritage and creative researchers at the University of Dar-es-Salaam and artists at TaSUBa (Bagamoyo's Arts and Cultural Institute - Taasisi ya Sanaa na Utamaduni Bagamoyo). Training will be given in digital methods and the output will include an entry to the film shorts category at the Zanzibar International Film Festival; and a real-time portal/art installation to be showcased at the vibrant Bagamoyo Arts Festival that will link places within Tanzania (Bagamoyo on Mainland and Zanzibar Stone Towns) and between Tanzania, England and Scotland as an innovative concept and alternate form of digital twinning 'Windows Across the Oceans'. The innovative digital heritage research will enhance inclusive engagement with the creative and cultural economy in Tanzania supporting cultural heritage tourism and cultural resource management. The installations will be used to highlight the universal value of world heritage to a global audience, the importance of conserving cultural heritage settings (townscape heritage, maritime heritage) to both local people and government in Tanzania and the linked understanding and meaning that comes from oral histories, craft traditions and other rich narratives. The project facilitates knowledge exchange and capacity building throughout, crucially involving TZ researchers to spend time in the UK, developing digital heritage skills to work with the Bagamoyo data, with additional financial support/ value-added from Erasmus+ funded activity As a result , with researchers from UDSM we will co-create a digital twin for the Historic City of Bagamoyo (on the UNESCO tentative world heritage list) and as part of this, generate Google StreetView-ready content to raise visibility for townscape heritage and to support local businesses. The digital twin will serve as a framework to unite Bagamoyo's tangible heritage (buildings, port and boat-building tradition, landscapes/ seascapes), and intangible narratives (stories, songs, cultural practices and craft knowledge) to help to document past and present way of life. The new, vibrant digital assets that are created through this project will 1) support local tour guides (helping to increase visibility as a tourism destination; and by creating digital resources that can enhance the tourism experience); 2) promote global citizenship and foster good community relations (helping to educate people, develop place-making and enhance civic pride); 3) develop use of IT through methods that support digital discovery (hidden heritage); 4) improve accessibility (equality, diversity and inclusion); 5) provide methods for long term monitoring of change to sites by heritage guardians.

In the past four decades there has been a considerable modal shift from walking to school to going by car for primary school children in England. This has led to increased congestion and air pollution and decreased traffic safety. Meanwhile, many studies have shown the health benefits to children of active travel to school. The UK Government set a target to increase the percentage of children aged 5 to 10 that usually walk to school in England from 49% in 2014 to 55% in 2025. However, despite recent initiatives, such as the national Walk to School Outreach programme, the National Travel Survey in 2019 recorded the lowest ever percentage of primary school children walking to school at 46%. Time constraints are often cited as the main barrier to parents accompanying children in walking to school with concerns about safety deterring parents from allowing children to travel independently. This highlights that if a system of providing adult supervision for walking to school can be set up then there is good scope to increase the numbers of children walking to school. A walking school bus (WSB) involves a group of children walking to school with one or more adults and following a set route. WSBs have increased walking to school in Australia, New Zealand and the United States but the UK has not widely adopted them. Taking up WSBs in significant numbers requires a degree of organisation to establish meeting points, safe routes, adult supervisors and timetables. The proposed research will develop a planning tool to enable schools to maximise the number of children walking to school using safe routes accompanied by adults. At the heart of the tool will be an Optimisation Model that identifies walking routes to school and meeting points, while addressing multiple objectives (travel time, safety and air pollution exposure). We will develop this based on our extensive experience in developing multi-objective problem solutions for public transport scheduling and other transport and healthcare applications. The Optimisation Model will work in conjunction with a Modal Choice Model, which estimates student modal choices as input to the Optimisation Model, and with a Road Network Model, which estimates the consequences of a particular walk-to-school scenario on road network conditions. The Modal Choice Model will include a novel development recognising that decisions by parents on how their children get to school are based not only on individual considerations, such as minimising travel time, but on the opinions and choices made by other parents. This will build on the team's previous work exploring the role of social influence in travel choices. The Road Network Model will allow assessments to be made of traffic management measures that can be combined with WSBs to increase confidence in walking to school. We will design the tool so that it can be used repeatedly as circumstances change. It will be able to be used reactively for re-planning when there have been changes (e.g. children absent, new school years, etc.) or proactively to put in place 'ghost' routes/stops to attract new users where potential is identified (e.g. where there is a clustering of children or where WSBs can have maximum influence on reducing pollution near a school). Our aim is for the tool to support the work of organisations such as our Project Partner Living Streets delivering the Government's Walk to School Outreach programme. A Stakeholder Advisory Group will help steer the project. The academic team will partner with Living Streets to ensure the tool is well-grounded (for example, in terms of how parents perceive walking routes or how parents' willingness for their child to walk to school is affected by physical and social context) and is practically useful for real-world application. We will demonstrate the planning tool in Bradford where the local authority and schools have agreed to work with us in designing and applying our work.

The Yorkshire Ouse basin, which encompasses the cities of Leeds, York and Sheffield as well as the rivers Aire, Calder, Derwent, Don, Swale, Wharfe, Ure and Nidd is home to 6.7% of the UK population, 30% of the Northern Powerhouse region and includes 10 metropolitan boroughs. The region includes a variety of different environments, from large urban areas to lowland agriculture and sparsely populated uplands including National Parks and Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty. As such, it is a perfect location to instigate a programme of work which uses existing NERC-funded science to identify, develop, test and improve integrated solutions on a range of environmental impacts. This encompasses mitigation of drought and flood risk through improved connectivity between weather forecasting, land management and water resource management; improvements in water quality for both human water supply and rivers/other water bodies; and better management of soils for improved regional food security and carbon storage (in woodlands and peatland). By integrating these aspects of weather, land and water, it will enable better plans to be made for the region that allow for sustainable development as the population grows whilst protecting the valuable natural environment. Ultimately, by creating a region that is better able to deal with a more variable climate, it will become an area that attracts investment as people and their businesses opt to live and work in an area that has adapted to the severe effects of environmental change, with improved quality of life. Many major global companies already have their water headquarters or global environmental head offices in the region together with a range of SMEs and large businesses whose interests include catchment management. As such, there is considerable momentum behind the Yorkshire Integrated Catchment Solutions Programme - Yorkshire iCASP - which seeks to deliver economic and social impacts to the region. Yorkshire iCASP will capitalise on existing NERC-funded science to develop tools, strategies, plans and policies to promote hazard resilience, mitigation of extreme events (floods and droughts), develop flood forecasting capability, improve water quality, enhance soils and farm practice and develop a joined-up approach for land and water management. iCASP has been co-created by partners drawn from local authorities, government agencies, major infrastructure/utility owners, private sector service providers, academic institutions, and third sector organisations who will work together to produce and deliver a work programme that seeks to enhance the economic and societal status of the region. Outcomes from the collaboration will deliver tools and techniques with applicability outside the region, creating services and products which can be used around the world to further benefit the region and the UK economy more generally. Examples of the projects that have been discussed in the work programme include development of green financing enterprises; development of new tools to better link flood forecasting with impacts on rivers and different land management practices; decision-support tools that allow different area-specific flood/drought management scenarios to be evaluated; and raw water management approaches that reduce the cost of water treatment. All will have different, and often multifaceted, impacts on society and the wider environment so another important aspect of iCASP is the documentation and evaluation of the projects implemented as part of the work programme, measuring the changes that they contribute to the regional, and national, economy as well as the growth of iCASP partners through leveraged investment, job creation and wider societal benefits.