Long Term Large Scale - Freshwater Ecosystems (LTLS-FE): Rivers in the United Kingdom have in the past and the present been subjected to a range of pressures due to the release of chemicals and by-products, such as domestic wastewater, acid rain, the application of nutrients and pesticides to soils, and the use of domestic products such as medicines. While some of these pressures (e.g. acid rain, wastewater discharges) appear to have eased over recent decades, others (e.g. pesticides, nutrients) remain and may be increasing. In addition to these pressures, climate change is also expected to impact on the quality of UK rivers, for example by leading to changes in anthropogenic chemical use, by changing the amount of water in rivers and thus how much water is available to dilute chemicals, by making storms and floods more or less frequent, and by changing the volume of chemicals washed into rivers from the land. Climate change could also influence freshwater biodiversity, for example by increasing the exposure of organisms to pulses of toxic chemicals during storms or by increasing the likelihood that UK rivers are invaded by alien species which outcompete native species. The quality and health of UK rivers are of great interest to many groups - the general public who rely on waters for recreation such as swimming and angling, to the regulators who are tasked with improving and then maintaining water quality, and to water companies who partly rely on rivers for drinking water supplies. It is therefore important that we try to understand as well as possible how water quality and health might be affected by future changes in the way society uses chemicals and water, and how these might be further affected by climate change. This is a complex problem, because the factors that drive river quality are many and they will vary over time and from place to place. This project will tackle the problem by developing a model that will use these drivers to predict how chemical inputs, river quality and river health will change in the context of different 'pathways', or scenarios of change in society and climate. By doing this, we will provide a range of 'projections' of future river quality and health. These projections will help scientists and policymakers to understand the main factors controlling river quality and health. This will help them to develop solutions to manage and ameliorate possible changes in the factors that influence river quality and health, with the goal of maintaining and improving the state of UK rivers in a changing world. As well as our projections of possible futures for UK river quality and health, we will make the data and model code available to all at the end of the project. This will provide other researchers with possibilities such as changing the mathematics of the model, adding new chemicals as they emerge, or applying the model to other countries and parts of the world.

The Warwick IMRC will be active in two focus sectors as followsIntelligent and Eco-Friendly VehiclesThe future of road transport will undoubtedly require vehicles to become more intelligent. This will reduce accidents, improve infrastructure utilisation thereby reducing congestion and minimise environmental impact through more efficient vehicle dynamics. The application of intelligence will allow major changes to the construction of vehicles and the reduction of unladen weight since structures to absorb impact damage will become redundant if collision avoidance systems are implemented. The research will investigate the impact on vehicle design, the technologies required, changes in manufacturing processes, final test implications and vehicle maintenance and upgrade throughout the product lifetime. In addition aspects of the driver -vehicle interface will be researched to minimise the impact on driver satisfaction . The work will also encompass aerospace applications in areas such as autonomous planes for military and commercial use.Lean HealthcareA major challenge for the healthcare industry is to deliver high quality care at the time of need at minimum cost and with maximum customer/supplier (patient/healthcare practitioner) satisfaction. There are many challenges that can be addressed through the application of design, technology and management processes. Many of the lessons learnt in other industries can be adapted to address these challenges and in particular the successes in lean manufacturing are especially relevant. Projects in this area will include hospital based initiatives such as robotically assisted surgery, primary care research in health centres and doctors surgeries, remote diagnostic systems applicable to the long-term ill living at home and the application of best practice in new product introduction to improve the roll-out and acceptance of innovation in the healthcare industry.

There is an increasing demand from policy that conservation and sensitive management of our landscape should not be restricted to areas designated for their conservation value, but should extend to the broader landscape as well. There is also an increasing expectation from society that development and infrastructure projects should be undertaken in such a way that not only minimises their environmental impact but where possible enhances the wider landscape and the benefits and services that we obtain from it, such as flood prevention, the provision of clean water, carbon storage and recreation. Those organisations and businesses responsible for managing large areas of the landscape therefore need the appropriate information to help them achieve these goals. There is an increasing body of evidence concerning how landscape management affects landscape benefits and services. This evidence has helped to inform the development of a wide range of computer models that can be used to quantify the different services that a particular landscape provides, and to predict the likely impacts of landscape change on these services. However, many of these models are heavily research-focused, require specialist knowledge to operate and interpret, and are not accessible to general users. In this project, using two existing ecosystem service decision-support models as test-beds for the approach, we will develop a web-based tool that will allow users of the models to examine and evaluate the evidence base underlying the predictions of the models. This evidence tool will use a process that is well-established as industry standard in other areas of application, including engineering and transport safety, but has not previously been applied in environmental management. The tool will allow users of these ecosystem service models to understand and track the evidence underpinning model predictions for the first time. There are potential applications of this evidence tool across a wide range of sectors, including energy, water and transport, and the construction industry, as well as for nature conservation. Our group of formal partners in the project attests to this, and includes an industry regulator, an energy supply company, a construction firm, a landscape management partnership and a Wildlife Trust, as well as Defra, the Welsh Government, Natural Resources Wales and Natural England.

This proposal is for the renewal of the block grant for the Engineering Innovative Manufacturing Centre at the University of Bath. The Centre is unique in combining a design focus with a strong emphasis on manufacture in a closely integrated group. The context of the Centre's work is:* globally distributed design and manufacture of complex products and processes;* pressure on price, quality and timescale;* the move from test-based (physical prototypes) to simulation-based (virtual prototypes) engineering* the movement towards sustainable engineering practice. * the key importance in engineering of knowledge and information management. The Bath Engineering IMRC's mission is to develop tools, methods and knowledge, underpinned by appropriate theory and fundamental research, to support engineering enterprises in these new circumstances. In particular, the focus of the Centre is on whole life design information and knowledge management, and improving the design of machines, processes and systems.

Targeted management of the UK's fire prone landscapes will be crucial in enabling the country to achieve its commitments both to reach net zero by 2050 and to halt species decline by 2030. Many of our fire prone landscapes represent nationally significant carbon (C) stores. They also provide key habitats for unique species including many on the UK BAP Priority Species listing and are of strategic conservation value. But these typically shrub and grass dominated ecosystems are threatened both by the changing UK wildfire regime and some management tools aimed to mitigate this risk. Critical trade-offs therefore exist between the impact of episodic severe wildfire events and ongoing long term management practises, as well as between the positive and negative impacts of management tools on different prioritised ecosystem services; notably between C storage, habitat management and biodiversity provision. These trade-offs and the associated best management practises will vary between landscapes that have different management history, vegetation composition, legacy soil C stores and natural environmental conditions. Thus selection of the appropriate land management from the diverse toolkit available needs to be very carefully considered; the right tool to address the right priorities at the right location. The evidence base to make this complex choice, however, is currently weak. This undermines the ability of decision makers locally and nationally to assess the consequences of different wildfire management tools. IDEAL UK FIRE will address this urgent need, by determining the environmental costs and benefits of widely applied fuel management tools (burning, cutting, rewetting and managed succession) on habitat quality, biodiversity and the carbon balance in fire prone UK landscapes. We will directly contrast those medium-/long-term responses against the initial impact of the fuel management interventions and potential wildfires of varying severity. Through i) observations and collation of extensive historical monitoring, ii) experimental burns and wider management intervention and iii) the adaptation and application of the JULES land surface model, FlamMap fire analysis system and the Rangeshifter eco-evolutionary modelling platform, the project will: - Quantify carbon consumption and charcoal production across a range of (wild)fire and management intensities in different landscapes and under different land management strategies. - Determine the medium-term trajectories of biodiversity and carbon balance post intervention through a national chronosequence of management tools. - Develop next generation models to simulate the national long-term consequences of land management strategies to the UK ecosystem carbon balance, carbon climate feedbacks, habitat quality and biodiversity. We embed all this knowledge into a newly developed accredited training module for the land management sector. The module supports land managers to understand the consequences of different management tools, supporting them to make informed decisions in their landscapes to best meet both national and local management goals. The training programme will provide a generalisable frame-work to evaluate land management practices and a knowledge platform to inform government policy on the costs and benefits of wildfire management tools.