There is irrefutable evidence that the climate is changing. There also is strong evidence that this is largely a result of human activity, driven by our insatiable consumption of resources, growing populations, unsustainable migration patterns and rapid overdevelopment in cities that are resulting in heavy ecosystem services losses. Humankind's solutions to these problems do not always work, as many rely upon quantities of resources that simply do not exist or that could not support the rate of change that we are facing, behaviour changes that sit uneasily with our current consumption patterns and quality of life aspirations, and government policies that emphasise long-term sustainable gain but potential short-term economic loss for businesses and local people. A radical revisioning of the problem is needed, not only to reverse current trends, but also to contribute positively to the sustainability and wellbeing of the planet, now and in the future. This proposal is that radical new vision, adopting a 'whole of government' focus to the changes needed in the ways that societies live, work, play and consume, balancing social aspirations against the necessary changes, and using CO2 emissions as a proxy measurement for the harm being done to the planet and the resources (particularly energy) that we use. Through the development of a city analysis methodology; engineering design criteria for quality of life and wellbeing; engineering design criteria for low carbon pathways and; radical engineering approaches, strategies and visioning-all generated in a multidisciplinary context-we aim to deliver a range of engineering solutions that are effective in sustaining civilised life, in an affordable and socially acceptable style. Our vision is to transform the engineering of cities to deliver societal and planetary wellbeing within the context of low carbon living and resource security. We seek to prove that an alternative future with drastically reduced CO2 emissions is achievable in a socially acceptable manner, and to develop realistic and radical engineering solutions to achieve it. Certain techno-fixes for a low-carbon society have been known for some time (e.g., installing low energy appliances in homes), but are not always deemed successful, in part because they have not been deemed socially acceptable. Current aspirations for material consumption are driven by social factors and reinforced by social norms, yet recent research shows that meeting these aspirations often does not enhance wellbeing. Thus, the challenge the research community faces is to co-evolve the techno-fixes with people's aspirations, incorporating radical engineering strategies within the financial, policy/regulation and technical contexts, to re-define an alternative future. A roadmap is required to chart the path from here to there, identify potential tipping points and determine how to integrate radical engineering strategies into norms. However, this roadmap can only be considered once that alternative future has been established, and a 'back-casting' exercise carried out, to explore where the major barriers to change lie and where interventions are needed. Our ambition is to create an holistic, integrated, truly multidisciplinary city analysis methodology that uniquely combines engineered solutions and quality-of-life indicators, accounts for social aspirations, is founded on an evidence base of trials of radical interventions in cities, and delivers the radical engineering solutions necessary to achieve our vision. We seek to achieve this ambition by using a variety of innovative and traditional approaches and methods to undertake five research challenges, which are outlined in detail in five technical annexes.

Project SINATRA responds to the NERC call for research on flooding from intense rainfall (FFIR) with a programme of focused research designed to advance general scientific understanding of the processes determining the probability, incidence, and impacts of FFIR. Such extreme rainfall events may only last for a few hours at most, but can generate terrifying and destructive floods. Their impact can be affected by a wide range factors (or processes) such as the location and intensity of the rainfall, the shape and steepness of the catchment it falls on, how much sediment is moved by the water and the vulnerability of the communities in the flood's path. Furthermore, FFIR are by their nature rapid, making it very difficult for researchers to 'capture' measurements during events. The complexity, speed and lack of field measurements on FFIR make it difficult to create computer models to predict flooding and often we are uncertain as to their accuracy. To address these issues, NERC launched the FFIR research programme. It aims to reduce the risks from surface water and flash floods by improving our identification and prediction of the meteorological (weather), hydrological (flooding) and hydro-morphological (sediment and debris moved by floods) processes that lead to FFIR. A major requirement of the programme is identifying how particular catchments may be vulnerable to FFIR, due to factors such as catchment area, shape, geology and soil type as well as land-use. Additionally, the catchments most susceptible to FFIR are often small and ungauged. Project SINATRA will address these issues in three stages: Firstly increasing our understanding of what factors cause FFIR and gathering new, high resolution measurements of FFIR; Secondly using this new understanding and data to improve models of FFIR so we can predict where they may happen - nationwide and; Third to use these new findings and predictions to provide the Environment Agency and over professionals with information and software they can use to manage FFIR, reducing their damage and impact to communities. In more detail, we will: 1. Enhance scientific understanding of the processes controlling FFIR, by- (a) assembling an archive of past FFIR events in Britain and their impacts, as a prerequisite for improving our ability to predict future occurrences of FFIR. (b) making real time observations of flooding during flood events as well as post-event surveys and historical event reconstruction, using fieldwork and crowd-sourcing methods. (c) characterising the physical drivers for UK summer flooding events by identifying the large-scale atmospheric conditions associated with FFIR events, and linking them to catchment type. 2. Develop improved computer modelling capability to predict FFIR processes, by- (a) employing an integrated catchment/urban scale modelling approach to FFIR at high spatial and temporal scales, modelling rapid catchment response to flash floods and their impacts in urban areas. (b) scaling up to larger catchments by improving the representation of fast riverine and surface water flooding and hydromorphic change (including debris flow) in regional scale models of FFIR. (c) improving the representation of FFIR in the JULES land surface model by integrating river routing and fast runoff processes, and performing assimilation of soil moisture and river discharge into the model run. 3. Translate these improvements in science into practical tools to inform the public more effectively, by- (a) developing tools to enable prediction of future FFIR impacts to support the Flood Forecasting Centre in issuing new 'impacts-based' warnings about their occurrence. (b) developing a FFIR analysis tool to assess risks associated with rare events in complex situations involving incomplete knowledge, analogous to those developed for safety assessment in radioactive waste management. In so doing SINATRA will achieve NERC's science goals for the FFIR programme.

Pressure on urban spaces is increasing year on year. At the start of the nineteenth century 3% of the world's population lived in cities, after 2007 more than 50% will do so. The trend presents us with a number of difficult challenges resulting from climate change, population growth, disease and terrorism that, if not met, forebode dreadful consequences for health, social cohesion and economic stability:How to manage and adapt our current urban space and infrastructure to cope with the loading and threats placed on and against them?How to design, engineer, expand and maintain the new class of eco-cities?How to promote these ideas to governments, industry and investment funds?The UK is vulnerable to natural and technological disasters both within its borders and elsewhere in the world. The principal natural disasters affecting the nation are windstorms and floods (both river and coastal), both of which have triggered major losses in recent years. In January 1990, damage due to Winter Storm Daria cost insurers 3.37 billion, making it the UK's most expensive weather event, while in 2007 floods inundated 48,000 homes and 7,300 businesses and cost insurers 3 billion. Biological and technological disasters also have major cost implications, with losses associated with the 2001 Foot and Mouth outbreak reaching 8 billion, and the total cost of the 2006 Buncefield explosion set at 1 billion. Because of the London reinsurance market's (and particularly Lloyd's) central role in reinsuring against natural catastrophes all over the world, the country is also vulnerable to major disasters abroad. For example, the UK reinsurance market's share of the US$60 billion insured losses from Hurricane Katrina (New Orleans) contributed to the country's worst trade deficit on record in August 2005. Looking ahead, by 2080, UK flood losses could be as high as 22 billion, 15 times higher than they are today, while a predicted 20 percent rise in the more powerful winter storms, could see a substantial increase in wind-related losses. On the technological front, the cost to the UK economy of an H5N1 pandemic could be a GDP reduction of five percent or more, while the total cost of a major nuclear accident has been estimated at somewhere between 83 billion and 5.4 trillion. The UK is now firmly within an international marketplace: vulnerabilities arise not only from events and trends within the UK, but also from economic and environmental disasters abroad. Our strongly developed, sophisticated and consumer-focussed urban society has become increasingly complex. Ordinary people, businesses and public services rely upon a deep hierarchy of inter-dependent supply chains and industries in order to function in the way that they do. With this increased complexity has come increased risk and vulnerability. This vulnerability is, in part, exacerbated by population density in urban conglomerations and the resultant pressure upon space. The programme focuses upon two key themes: sustainability and resilience. Sustainability addresses the maintenance of an ecological system (atmosphere, water, the food chain) whilst at the same time enabling human development of the urban environment and the surrounding hinterland. Resilience is a newer concept dealing with the issue of how to mitigate the effects of environmental disasters and terrorism, incorporating seismic and volcanic hazard (earthquakes, tsunamis, landslides), flood risk, the spread and control of disease (water, air and animal borne), security and situational awareness. This includes four key ideas: rapidity (how rapidly a response can be coordinated and put into effect), resourcefulness (the importance of having multiple ways of tackling a problem), redundancy (to better absorb the effect of disasters, over-engineering to protect against failure of system components) and robustness (simple robust engineering: building stuff that stands up irrespective of what is thrown at it.

What will the UK's critical infrastructure look like in 2030? In 2050? How resilient will it be? Decisions taken now by policy makers, NGOs, industrialists, and user communities will influence the answers to these questions. How can this decision making be best informed by considerations of infrastructural resilience? This project will consider future developments in the UK's energy and transport infrastructure and the resilience of these systems to natural and malicious threats and hazards, delivering a) fresh perspectives on how the inter-relations amongst our critical infrastructure sectors impact on current and future UK resilience, b) a state-of-the-art integrated social science/engineering methodology that can be generalised to address different sectors and scenarios, and c) an interactive demonstrator simulation that operationalises the otherwise nebulous concept of resilience for a wide range of decision makers and stakeholders.Current reports from the Institute for Public Policy Research, the Institution of Civil Engineers, the Council for Science and Technology, and the Cabinet Office are united in their assessment that achieving and sustaining resilience is the key challenge facing the UK's critical infrastructure. They are also unanimous in their assessment of the main issues. First, there is agreement on the main threats to national infrastructure: i) climate change; ii) terrorist attacks; iii) systemic failure. Second, the complex, disparate and interconnected nature of the UK's infrastructure systems is highlighted as a key concern by all. Our critical infrastructure is highly fragmented both in terms of its governance and in terms of the number of agencies charged with achieving and maintaining resilience, which range from national government to local services and even community groups such as local resilience forums. Moreover, the cross-sector interactions amongst different technological systems within the national critical infrastructure are not well understood, with key inter-dependencies potentially overlooked. Initiatives such as the Cabinet Office's new Natural Hazards Team are working to address this. The establishment of such bodies with responsibility for oversight and improving joined up resilience is a key recommendation in all four reports. However, such bodies currently lack two critical resources: (1) a full understanding of the resilience implications of our current and future infrastructural organisation; and (2) vehicles for effectively conveying this understanding to the full range of relevant stakeholders for whom the term resilience is currently difficult to understand in anything other than an abstract sense. The Resilient Futures project will engage directly with this context by working with relevant stakeholders from many sectors and governance levels to achieve a step change in both (1) and (2). To achieve this, we will focus on future rather than present UK infrastructure. This is for a two reasons. First, we intend to engender a paradigm shift in resilience thinking - from a fragmented short-termism that encourages agencies to focus on protecting their own current assets from presently perceived threats to a longer-term inter-dependent perspective recognising that the nature of both disruptive events and the systems that are disrupted is constantly evolving and that our efforts towards achieving resilience now must not compromise our future resilience. Second, focussing on a 2030/2050 time-frame lifts discussion out of the politically charged here and now to a context in which there is more room for discussion, learning and organisational change. A focus on *current resilience* must overcome a natural tendency for the agencies involved to defend their current processes and practices, explain their past record of disruption management, etc., before the conversation can move to engaging with potential for improvement, learning and change.

Compared to many parts of the world, the UK has under-invested in its infrastructure in recent decades. It now faces many challenges in upgrading its infrastructure so that it is appropriate for the social, economic and environmental challenges it will face in the remainder of the 21st century. A key challenge involves taking into account the ways in which infrastructure systems in one sector increasingly rely on other infrastructure systems in other sectors in order to operate. These interdependencies mean failures in one system can cause follow-on failures in other systems. For example, failures in the water system might knock out electricity supplies, which disrupt communications, and therefore transportation, which prevent engineers getting to the original problem in the water infrastructure. These problems now generate major economic and social costs. Unfortunately they are difficult to manage because the UK infrastructure system has historically been built, and is currently operated and managed, around individual infrastructure sectors. Because many privatised utilities have focused on operating infrastructure assets, they have limited experience in producing new ones or of understanding these interdependencies. Many of the old national R&D laboratories have been shut down and there is a lack of capability in the UK to procure and deliver the modern infrastructure the UK requires. On the one hand, this makes innovation risky. On the other hand, it creates significant commercial opportunities for firms that can improve their understanding of infrastructure interdependencies and speed up how they develop and test their new business models. This learning is difficult because infrastructure innovation is undertaken in complex networks of firms, rather than in an individual firm, and typically has to address a wide range of stakeholders, regulators, customers, users and suppliers. Currently, the UK lacks a shared learning environment where these different actors can come together and explore the strengths and weaknesses of different options. This makes innovation more difficult and costly, as firms are forced to 'learn by doing' and find it difficult to anticipate technical, economic, legal and societal constraints on their activity before they embark on costly development projects. The Centre will create a shared, facilitated learning environment in which social scientists, engineers, industrialists, policy makers and other stakeholders can research and learn together to understand how better to exploit the technical and market opportunities that emerge from the increased interdependence of infrastructure systems. The Centre will focus on the development and implementation of innovative business models and aims to support UK firms wishing to exploit them in international markets. The Centre will undertake a wide range of research activities on infrastructure interdependencies with users, which will allow problems to be discovered and addressed earlier and at lower cost. Because infrastructure innovations alter the social distribution of risks and rewards, the public needs to be involved in decision making to ensure business models and forms of regulation are socially robust. As a consequence, the Centre has a major focus on using its research to catalyse a broader national debate about the future of the UK's infrastructure, and how it might contribute towards a more sustainable, economically vibrant, and fair society. Beneficiaries from the Centre's activities include existing utility businesses, entrepreneurs wishing to enter the infrastructure sector, regulators, government and, perhaps most importantly, our communities who will benefit from more efficient and less vulnerable infrastructure based services.