The world's mountains host some of the most complex, dynamic, and diverse ecosystems. But these environments are under severe threats, ranging from local deforestation and soil degradation to global climate change. Global climate models project stronger warming at high elevations, with potentially disastrous consequences for its ecosystems services (ESS). For instance, melting glaciers alone will affect the water supply of millions people, while soil degradation and erosion put local agricultural practices in danger, but also cause water quality degradation and siltation of downstream reservoirs. At the same time, the complexity of mountains also makes predicting the direction of future changes in ecosystem services extremely difficult. For instance, global climate models do not capture the local weather patterns, and traditional models of the natural and physical processes may not represent the extreme and region specific behaviour. This leads to large uncertainties in future predictions about mountain ESS. Under such conditions, the value of day-to-day information about how local ecosystems behave increases sharply. Continuous monitoring of crucial ecosystem processes becomes paramount. It allows local decision-makers to flexibly change course in response to unexpected behaviour and large uncertainties. However, because of their remote location and difficult access, monitoring ESS in mountain regions tends the lag behind the rest of the world. The same remoteness and lack of access are also responsible for the propensity of mountain regions to host poor and underdeveloped communities compared to the surrounding lowlands. Lastly, mountain regions tend to be more prone to conflict, which further inhibits human development. This project will analyse how monitoring and knowledge generation of ESS in mountain regions can be improved, and used to support a process of adaptive, polycentric governance focused on poverty alleviation. For this, we will blend cutting-edge concepts of adaptive governance with technological breakthroughs. The availability of cheap and robust sensors and communication technologies provides great opportunities for citizen science: bottom-up, user oriented data collection focused on local concerns. We will take citizen science to a next level, by integrating it in a broader framework of participatory data processing, knowledge generation and sharing. We do this by adopting the concept of Environmental Virtual Observatories (EVOs) and leverage it for poverty alleviation. We see the potential of EVOs to be decentralised and open technology platforms for knowledge generation and exchange that enable participation of marginalised and vulnerable communities bypassed by the traditional mechanisms. Therefore, in this project we will analyse how EVOs can be used to generate knowledge and to alleviate poverty in 4 remote and poor mountain regions: the Ethiopian highlands around lake Tana, the Central Tien Shan Mountains of Kyrgyzstan, the Kaligandaki watershed in Northern Nepal, and the Andes of central Peru. In each location, we will collect evidence on the local decision-making processes on ESS and their local socio-economic context. At the same time, we will develop a technology toolset to enable EVO development for each case. Subsequently, the results of both processes will be brought together to implement tailored EVOs to support citizen science and local knowledge generation. We will create novel ways to interact with EVOs beyond the traditional Internet focussing on leaflets in the national language, community radios, and mobile phone applications. We will evaluate how the improved access to local observations fosters cross-scale linkages between the poor and external actors, as well as linkages between communities and marginal groups. Lastly, we will investigate how this can lead to better community awareness of environmental change and identification of pathways for poverty alleviation.

The proposed network speaks to the cities and sustainable infrastructure theme, especially conservation and cultural heritage with the role (mountain) cities and towns play as constellations of knowledge and culture. It will deliver under SDG11 for inclusive, safe and resilient cities on sub-themes 11.3 on inclusive planning and 11.4 on cultural heritage. New transport connectivity driven by China One Belt One Road (OBOR) initiative offers new hopes and opportunities to communities in mountainous regions of Central Asia. However, increased connectivity also carries the potential to introduce significant new societal challenges in regard to benefits and their (possibly unequal) distribution, as well as challenges for socio-cultural resilience and the mobilisation and protection of intangible and tangible local cultural heritages. Rapid changes pose threats to the conservation of traditional practices but also opportunities to develop them as resources (such as craft production and tourism sites) and also mobilising and developing them further as heritage assets. All too often, rapid and externally driven development has commodified local cultures, to be packaged for sale - with both control and most economic benefits going to outside developers. This is especially true of mountain, borderland communities whose interests are very often subordinated to state imperatives for territorial control and security. The proposed GCRF network will address such needs and help to preserve the local cultural heritages of formerly isolated mountain towns and, furthermore, keep these cultural heritages alive - as integral aspects of modern societies with clearly articulated pathways of cultural continuity. The network will aim specifically to develop capacities for interventions that focus on empowering (formerly) remote mountain towns and cities, enabling them to maintain greater control over their own cultures, development, and economic benefits. The network takes this forward in the context of huge infrastructural development in terms of planned transit corridors to ask how this hard infrastructural development intersects with built heritage and the soft infrastructure of intangible heritages and culture. The current level of infrastructural planning largely has been driven at national levels by strategic regional visions, and most often has ignored or inadequately incorporated the needs and wishes of local communities. The resilience of local cultures to the 'shock' of the largescale development and increased connectivity currently affecting and rapidly changing the target region needs enhancing. Current ways of life and socio-cultural practices may be profoundly disrupted by all these changes, even as they bring new opportunities. Current infrastructural developments are introducing many, new economic imperatives, new contacts and new pressures and new demands on fragile socio-ecosystems systems - including encounters with tourists and traders alike, with all the new possibilities to sell products more widely. Immediate gains may be possible, for example through appropriate tourism and craft production opportunities, but these must be situated in the context of socio-cultural viability and global markets for products.