Our overall aim is to build earthquake resilience in China by improving (a) the assessment of seismic hazard and risk from earthquakes and consequent events and (b) the communication and use of probabilistic information in the development of more proportionate and risk-based strategies for disaster risk reduction. We will build on and extend a recently-developed historical catalogue for earthquakes, extend it for the first time to include consequent events (landslides, debris/mud-flows, outburst floods), unify this new database with modern instrumental data, use state-of the art statistical techniques to quantify the associated uncertainties, and incorporate social science-based understanding of risk communication and governance to improve policy development and implementation. The work programme will be carried out in Si-chuan (including the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake) and Yun-nan provinces. While they are both tectonically active, and mountainous, and thus vulnerable not only to earthquakes but also to consequent hazards of earthquake-triggered landslides and flooding, Si-chuan is one of the wealthiest provinces in China, while Yun-nan is one of poorest. These differences in wealth, combined with the recency of the devastating 2008 Wenchuan in Si-chuan compared to the more attenuated memory of the 1996 Lijiang earthquake in Yun-nan, make for a natural experiment in which to test the efficacy of improved probabilistic assessment of risk and associated uncertainty to people and property by earthquakes, and consequent event hazards, in supporting more risk-based approaches to disaster reduction. This project will promote long-term sustainable growth in earthquake prone regions of China by improving both the assessment of earthquake hazard and consequent event risk and the communication, understanding, and use of the resulting probabilistic forecasts for disaster risk reduction by policymakers and local publics. It addresses several specific capacity gaps identified in successive Chinese national disaster risk reduction strategies. As well as engaging with policymakers at both the national and local levels to improve the effectiveness of emergency planning and building code regulation, we will also engage directly with local publics to enhance public understanding of risk and capacity to deal with it. In so doing, the project will also fulfil the UK's Official Development Assistance (ODA) commitment to promoting "the economic development and welfare of developing countries" by drawing on UK's science base to address a key vulnerability differentially affecting the very poorest in China.

Air pollution is well established as having major negative impacts on human well-being, vegetation and general quality of life. Whilst the exact biological pathways and mechanisms for health impacts remain to be established, there is ample evidence to demonstrate that months to many years of life expectancy can be lost through exposure to air pollution outside. Those negative impacts are currently disproportionately experienced by those in living the world's largest cities and in rapidly developing economies. The basic causes of air pollution are understood; the combustion of fossil fuels for electricity, transport, cooking and heating, emissions from agriculture, from resource extraction, dust and so on, all play a part. Over the past two centuries economic expansion has always been closely tied to transition periods of increased air pollution and negative social and health outcomes. A key global challenge for the 21st century is to create a framework - scientific, regulatory, and technological - which enables economic development, with increases in individual prosperity and quality of life, without damaging air pollution as a side effect. Many of the processes associated with air pollution are non-linear in nature however, and the extremely complex composition of air, as both gases and particles, can make it very difficult to establish direct cause-and-effect. Pollutants often interact with one another in unexpected ways that can create negative unintended consequences from superficially reasonable policy interventions. This is a key area where scientific understanding remains incomplete. The inability to fully describe the chemistry and physics of the urban atmosphere limits society's ability to create effective solutions that work, and that do not conflict with wider developmental and economic goals. This project tackles some of the key uncertainties that remain in urban air processes, including how polluting chemicals are transformed or oxidised in the atmosphere, how gases and particles interact, how pollution is dispersed by weather, how remote emissions from outside the city impacts on urban populations and how the presence of pollution itself may affect feedback and alter on meteorology in cities. The project focuses its study on three key types of harmful air pollution: particulate matter (referred to as PM), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), and ozone O3. The project is a collaboration between ten UK Universities, three leading Chinese research institutes, all part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Peking University and three UK partner research organisations (CERC, NPL, Met Office). The project centre-piece are two periods of intensive observations in the centre of Beijing, in the contrasting atmospheric conditions of winter and summer. The experiments will make measurements at the surface, and in the vertical using a unique 1000ft meteorological tower. These experiments will generate a complex and multiparameter dataset that can challenge state of the art computer models of urban pollution. By challenging models with detailed data, their capabilities can be assessed and their weaknesses and failings identified, and then targeted for improvement. This is vital since the pathway to achieving better air quality is through policy that is underpinned by scientific understanding, and in air pollution science, that understanding is encapsulated in these computer models. The project will use state of the art models from the UK and from China, and develop methods to generate very high spatial resolution estimates of pollution at the surface, a type of data that is essential when studying the health effects of pollution, or evaluating how successful a future policy might be.

China's rapid industrialisation and urbanisation has been accompanied by large increases in air pollution. In recognition of the health and socio-economic issues associated with this China's State Council authorized a 1.75 trillion Yuan investment package: the Air Pollution Prevention Plan (the Plan). Our project, INHANCE, will: i) evidence the socio-economic efficacy of "the Plan" and, moving forward, ii) deliver an evidence based, effective, equitable and integrated intervention and management plan for air pollution mitigation in the Chinese megacity, Beijing. Through the engagement of its internationally leading research team INHANCE is very well placed to achieve these goals and with high-level involvement (Deputy Chief Scientist) from CRAES, (major drafters of Pollution Prevention and Control Law in China), we are well-poised to realise maximum impact from our research. INHANCE embraces ODA priorities by: i) promoting the economic development and welfare of a transitional China as its main objective; ii) ensuring long-term sustainable improvements to air quality in Beijing (transferable to other megacites); iii) building capacity in skills and knowledge, and; iv) supporting sustained development of research that will result in welfare enhancement and economic growth. The UK contribution in areas of environmental economics, UK air pollution abatement and air-quality renewable energy interactions represent clear engagement of UK research strength to realise ODA priorities. As an 'enabler' project INHANCE will promote synergies and opportunities across the whole program and through the INHANCE 'Champions' (see Case) will lead the engagement with Themes 1-3, and ensure the delivery of integrated science-based policy evaluation and design. Central to the INHANCE approach is a strong commitment to across program communication (WP1). Toward these ends an Executive Committee, in consultation with the program administration, will map INHANCE expertise to Themes 1-3. Two-way internal- and external-facing communication mechanisms will be implemented to foster an interdisciplinary environment. INHANCE will deliver a quantitative performance assessment of China's current air pollution policies wherein the effectiveness of current anti-air pollution measures will be 'scored' (WP2). This scoring will be based upon pollutant inventories, atmospheric chemistry models (PKU-V3 / WRF-Chem), emission and economic performance of energy structure optimization, and, evaluation of end-of-pipe control measures. The nexus among emission-health (physical and mental)-socioeconomic-energy impacts is central to the INHANCE research agenda (WP3). In order to interrogate this nexus INHANCE will establish and evaluate interactive relationships among exposure, vulnerability, impact on health, implications for industry and economic consequences. This WP will focus upon: air quality and renewable energy interactions; air pollution exposure and health impacts for low income population groups; measuring air pollution induced mental health impact; pollution footprint analysis - direct and indirect economic costs associated with physical and mental health losses, and; an estimation of the health burden associated with final consumption and trade. In its conclusion, INHANCE will deliver recommendations regarding integrated policy design and deliver an assessment for policy cost-effectiveness. To achieve this INHANCE will: compare and qualitatively assess air quality policies between Beijing and other cities; engage with Themes 1-3 and other relevant stakeholders to prescribe air pollution abatement trajectories; undertake policy performance assessment modelling; utilise techno-economic inventories for anti-pollution measures to conduct micro cost-benefit analysis of new policies; measure health and macroeconomic costs and benefits in mitigating air pollution, and; transform evidence generated into practical emission alleviation pathways.

The neurotransmitter dopamine, in the brain region called the striatum, is vitally important for our everyday actions and motivations. Without dopamine we develop Parkinson's disease and cannot move, but with too much dopamine, we develop addictions. If we could understand more about how dopamine is controlled by the brain, we might better understand how the brain regulates these behaviours, and how we might treat them better in disease. This project builds on a newly emerging area of neuroscience research that is transforming our understanding of the way brain circuits are regulated. In particular, new research suggests that neurons in the brain can be controlled by non-neuronal cells called astrocytes. In this project, we will explore whether astrocytes might control dopamine function. This is an area of biology which has been completely overlooked until now. Astrocytes vastly outnumber neurons in the brain and have long been known to be important for generally maintaining the brain and its supply of nutrients. Our current understanding of astrocyte function in brain circuits lags significantly behind our understanding of neuronal function but is now beginning to grow rapidly thanks to the advent of new experimental tools to modulate astrocyte activity. Recent work with these new tools demonstrates that astrocytes have more roles than once believed, and that strikingly, they can play powerful roles in directly regulating neurotransmitter release. In this project, we will examine for the first time, the fundamentally important questions of whether astrocytes in the striatum can modulate dopamine release and function. Until now, no-one has established whether or not astrocytes play a role in regulating dopamine release in the striatum. We have some new data which strongly suggest that astrocytes play an important role. Our first main aims will be to establish whether astrocytes in striatum dynamically modulate dopamine release, the mechanisms through which they might do it, and whether this impacts on dopamine-dependent behaviours. We will use state-of-the art tools, called chemogenetics and optogenetics, to specifically modulate the activity of astrocytes in mouse brains to understand their impact on dopamine function. Our second main aim will be to understand better whether there are changes to the biology of astrocytes in the striatum in Parkinson's disease. Astrocytes have been implicated as playing a role in Parkinson's disease, as well as in other neurodegenerative diseases, in which they can lose their supportive roles and gain neurotoxic properties. We have some new data which suggest that there are changes to the way that astrocytes work in striatum in Parkinson's disease and that might have negative consequences for dopamine function in the striatum. In this project, we will develop a better understanding of how astrocytes change in humans as well as in animal models, and test whether and how this impacts negatively on dopamine function in Parkinson's disease. Overall we expect this new and original project to greatly increase fundamental knowledge about how astrocytes control brain function in health and disease. It should cause a big shift in thinking. We expect to find that astrocytes are key players in governing dopamine function and that there are disruptions to the way that astrocytes operate and control dopamine function in Parkinson's disease. This work could also open up potential new avenues for drug discovery, by identifying disruptions to astrocyte biology that could be targets for future treatments for Parkinson's disease and other dopamine-related disorders.

Rice is one of the worlds most important crops, and it has a long history of supporting dense populations and civilizations throughout East, South and Southeast Asia. This project will reveal the history of rice cultivation comparatively across the region using cutting age archaeological science. One major aim is to reconstruct how rice was grown across the region at different times. Rice may be grown in wet cultivation systems (irrigated or flooded) and dry cultivation (based only on rainfall, often in upland areas), and in intermediate lowland, rainfed conditions. These different systems have important implications in terms of how productive rice is, and therefore how much human population it can support, as well as how labour-intensive it was. Dry systems yielded less but also cost less in terms of labour. How rice was grown has important implications for the impact that humans and rice had on environmental change. Intensive systems tend to require greater landscape modification and by supporting higher populations have knock-on effects on other resources, for example through deforestation. Another very important impact is the production of methane, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. Dry rice cultivation systems produce little methane whereas the more productive wet systems produce a lot. It has been hypothesized by some climate scientists that methane from rice contributed to an anomalous rise in methane over the past 5000 years which is not explained by natural sources. If so, then this has contributed to global warming even before the industrial era and will need to be factored into models that hope to predict where global climate change is going. One of the aims of this project is to ground truth this hypothesis by modelling up from the empirical archaeological evidence for rice cultivation over time to assess whether this fits with explaining at least part of the methane anomaly. In order to do this we need better evidence not just for where and when rice was cultivated but also whether it was grown in wet or dry systems. Through systematic study of archaeologically preserved seeds, we can identify the weed flora associated with past rice and whether it fits with a wet or dry system. In addition we have developed methods for classifying the assemblages of phytoliths (microscopic silica from the decomposition of plants) from archaeological sites as indicating wetter or drier rice cultivation regimes. We are now hoping to apply these methods over a larger number of sites and regions, especially regions for which archaeobotanical evidence for early rice is limited or lacking, including parts of India (western and northeastern), Bangladesh, Myanmar, Cambodia, Vietnam, and southern China (Yunnan, Sichuan, Guangdong). By combining these new results in a GIS modelling system, together with data from other parts of the region, mostly collected by us and colleagues over the past few years, we will be better able to produce realistic spatial models of the spread of rice, the extent of wet rice, and likely methane emissions over time. We will also be able to improve our understanding of how the development of rice agriculture relates to the long-term history of human societies in this region.