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.

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.

In thirty years' time there will be half a billion adolescents in Africa. Like youth everywhere, they possess huge potential to thrive. But more than half are trapped in cycles of poor nutrition, poverty, low education, violence and unemployment. They also have the world's highest rates of early fertility, with adverse long-term outcomes for adolescent parents and their children. Such inter-generational disadvantage creates risks not only in the region but also to global stability. The SDGs and African Union's Agenda 2063 challenge us to take a radical new approach. The UK's Global Challenges Research Fund provides a unique opportunity to do this. The Accelerating Advantage Hub will find the combinations of services with the greatest positive impacts for Africa's adolescents and their children. We need to move beyond services focused on single outcomes, towards 'super-accelerator' impacts across multiple SDGs of health, education, violence prevention, gender equality and economic stability. With our government partners we will test combination services - for example of cash transfers, malaria prophylaxis, parenting programs, business skills and violence prevention - to identify the leanest and most effective policy packages. The Hub has been planned with African governments and international agencies including the UN Development Program, African Union, UNICEF and the World Health Organisation. They have told us that 'evidence as usual' is not enough. When we make a personal investment, like buying a computer, we want to know not only whether it is the most efficient, but also whether it is good value for money and whether we will like to use it. Governments need the same information about services: their effectiveness, their cost-effectiveness, whether they can be delivered through existing health, education and welfare systems, and whether they will be accepted by service providers and by adolescents. The Hub will conduct large-scale studies and use existing data in Angola, Cote D'Ivoire, DRC, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia & Zimbabwe. All projects will include cost-effectiveness to assist budget decisions. In short, we will provide African policy-makers with the evidence they need and want to do the best for adolescents. The Hub will also train and support frontline workers to improve services for adolescents across Africa. We will turn evidence into training modules, freely accessible manuals and support materials. We will deliver practitioner training in 34 African countries by working with NGO partners selected for wide regional coverage, for example Paediatric Adolescent Treatment for Africa, the International Rescue Committee, Clowns without Borders and the International AIDS Alliance. Skills-building for young researchers in Africa and the UK is built into the Hub's work. We will support 45 promising young academics and dedicated African policymakers to focus their careers on improving the lives of adolescents and their children. The Hub's work is planned with adolescents themselves. Too many services have failed because they do not appeal to teenagers' aspirations and immediate goals. The Hub will work directly with adolescent advisory groups in Eastern, Western and Southern Africa to co-develop approaches that are not only effective, but also meaningful and fun for those who will use them. We aim to reach 20 million adolescents and their children with effective combinations of services to meet their needs. Between our direct countries of research and our NGO partners, the Hub will actively engage with policymakers, practitioners and adolescents across East, West, Southern and Central Africa and including fragile and war-torn states. We have a common goal: to transform the potential of Africa's adolescents into a thriving future for the continent.

Over 70% of the earth's surface is ocean. As a global population, we are entirely reliant upon a healthy ocean: it contributes to the renewal of freshwater; it absorbs over a quarter of global carbon dioxide, and it produces half the oxygen we breathe. The ocean has the potential to make significant contributions to sustainable development. Many developing countries already depend on their ocean resources for food, work and livelihoods. Yet we are reaching an ocean health crisis: cumulative pressures such as over-exploitation of its resources, ocean plastics and pollution and climate change, all compounded by multiple competing uses, are pushing the ocean ecosystem to a tipping point. There is an urgent need for more integrated ocean governance, to ensure greater balance between ocean conservation and sustainable use (Sustainable Development Goal 14) and realise the ocean's potential to contribute to poverty reduction, human health, healthy ecosystems on land, climate change mitigation and adaptation, equitable economic growth and decent employment. "We are the sea...we must wake up to this ancient truth...It is time to create things for ourselves, to create established standards of excellence that match those of our ancestors." It is with this spirit that the ONE OCEAN Hub will transform our response to the urgent challenges facing our ocean. The Hub will weave learning from the ocean, and traditional knowledge of the peoples who rely upon it, with scientific excellence, innovative legal approaches and artistic methods. Our aim is to bridge the disconnections in law, science and policy across all levels from the local to the international. We aim to empower vulnerable communities, woman and youth in the blue economy and catalyse the inclusive and integrated governance approaches required to ensure a healthy ocean and flourishing communities and economies. The Hub will specifically address the challenges of South Africa, Namibia, Ghana, Fiji and Solomon Islands in realising the economic, socio-cultural and environmental benefits from the ocean. It aims to support these countries' efforts towards developing a sustainable and fair blue economy by providing new scientific data and tools to engage different sectors and groups within society, particularly vulnerable communities, woman and youth, in identifying opportunities, risks and trade-offs to: i) prevent and mitigate negative development impacts connected to the ocean, ii) participate in traditional and emerging ocean activities, and iii) predict the socioeconomic benefits of ocean conservation. The Hub pioneers integrating law and arts, policy, informatics, education, history, anthropology, and philosophy to provide targeted advice on coherent and flexible, pro-poor and gender- sensitive, climate-proofed and transparent laws and policies across the areas of environmental, human rights, science and technology, trade and investment. The Hub will further integrate biology, physics, chemistry, oceanography, ecology, mathematics, socio-environmental sciences and law to advance understanding of sustainable fisheries in the face of climate change impacts, as well as socio-economic and cultural considerations. The Hub will also increase understanding of conservation and extraction options for deep-sea mineral, biological and freshwater resources, integrating biology, ecology, geology, socio-environmental sciences and law. Through innovative use of arts the hub will transcend traditional boundaries in policy, law, and between ocean stakeholders from local communties to international organisatons, to respectfully and effectively include local communities' traditional knowledge in decision-making at the national and local level on the blue economy. The Hub will develop the integrated governance frameworks and strengthen the capacity within commnities to drive innovative approaches to a fair and sustainable blue economy for South Africa, Namibia, Ghana, Fiji and Solomon Islands