Permanent oxygen minimum zones (OMZs) that extend to over 10 million km3 of ocean (ca. 8% of ocean volume) are expanding geographically and vertically due to climate-driven reductions in dissolved oxygen (DO). Potential impacts on marine animal distributions and abundance may be particularly significant for high-oxygen-demand apex predators, such as oceanic pelagic sharks, by reducing habitat volumes through OMZ shoaling and concentrating them further in surface waters where they become more vulnerable to fisheries. But predictions of how exploited oceanic fish actually respond to OMZ expansions are not based on mechanistic understandings, principally because direct measurements of oxygen tolerances during normal behaviour have not been determined for large predatory fish in the open ocean. The proposed research will bring about a step change in our understanding of OMZ impacts on oceanic ecology by applying our existing expertise in animal movement studies and by deploying new telemetry technologies for measuring oxygen environments actually encountered by free-living oceanic sharks moving above/within OMZs. This will enable major unknowns to be addressed concerning how oceanic sharks respond physiologically and behaviourally to OMZs, how oceanic shark habitats change with predicted OMZ expansion, and whether this will increase shark vulnerability to fishing gear. The project will achieve its objectives through linked field and modelling studies on two Red-Listed species, the warm-bodied (endothermic) shortfin mako, Isurus oxyrinchus, and the ectothermic blue shark, Prionace glauca, that are the two pelagic shark species most frequently caught in high seas fisheries. By focusing in depth on key processes underlying shark responses to DO in situ, our new modelling approaches will establish effects of future warming and OMZ shoaling on fish niches and determine how these shift distributions and alter capture risk by fisheries. The project represents a discipline-spanning approach linking physiology to ecology and oceanography, with wide-ranging outcomes for understanding global biotic responses to warming and ocean deoxygenation with direct relevance to sustainable fisheries and species conservation.

Water security is vital for sustainable economic growth and poverty reduction, and hence water infrastructure is one cornerstone of development. Built water infrastructure safeguards water supplies and water quality and helps to reduce and avoid water-related disaster. Combined with hydropower and irrigation development, benefits include water, food and energy security, industrial development and wealth generation. Climate change is increasing demand for water infrastructure, especially in developing countries with high vulnerability. Ecosystem services are integral to outcomes from water infrastructure development, including climate resilience, but are often overlooked in investment decisions. The functioning of built water infrastructure itself and the livelihoods of poor people and key industry sectors rely on ecosystem services. However, services are lost when ecosystems are destroyed or damaged by the construction of dams, reservoirs, irrigation systems and canals, because for example wetlands may be drained or seasonal patterns of river flow and groundwater disrupted. Water infrastructure development for poverty alleviation is thus not a simple question of expanding the endowment of built water infrastructure, but involves trade-offs and synergies with ecosystems. These affect poor people and the success of poverty reduction. A critical challenge in developing water security for poverty reduction is to provide needed built water infrastructure while finding ways of sustaining ecosystem services. One approach is to recognise river basins themselves as infrastructure: they are 'natural infrastructure', providing provisioning, regulating, supporting and cultural ecosystem services, such as water storage, conveyance, flood regulation, safe water supply and water for food. Infrastructure planning and investment can then consider portfolios of infrastructure, based on the economic, social, and environmental costs and benefits of alternate mixes of natural and built infrastructure. The proposed project will develop a case for support and design a research programme to provide knowledge and tools needed to enable a portfolio approach to water infrastructure development combining built and natural infrastructure. This will be based on: - accounting of ecosystem services and their values; - use of mathematical optimisation techniques to identify mixes of natural and built infrastructure that prioritise the objectives of poor people and pro-poor growth. However, optimisation tools are not sufficient by themselves, as reality is complicated by unknowns, uncertainties, contested facts and complex systems. Decisions are shaped as much or more by politics and institutional constraints as scientific knowledge. Therefore research on ecosystem services, economic valuation and optimisation will be complemented by: - analysis of water governance, institutional arrangements and policies that enable unknowns and uncertainties to be managed effectively; - action research with policy makers and multi-stakeholder dialogues to test whether optimisation knowledge and tools can support consensus building and negotiation of infrastructure choices. The research programme will be implemented using a case study approach in river basins that will be selected in South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and, potentially, Amazonia. Research activities will be complemented by capacity building with researchers and key stakeholders. The Partnerships and Project Development phase proposed here will follow a three stage process. Stage 1 will focus on case study identification and consortium mapping for the full proposal, Stage 2 on inter-disciplinary learning and research design, and Stage 3 on preparation of final outputs. In addition to the ESPA Consortium Grant proposal, output from this phase will include an impact pathways analysis for research on built and natural infrastructure to support capacity building.

Humans have massively altered flows of nitrogen on our planet, leading to both benefits for food production and multiple threats to the environment. There are few places on Earth more affected than South Asia, with levels of nitrogen pollution rapidly increasing. The result is a web of interlinked problems, as nitrogen losses from agriculture and from fossil fuel combustion cause air and water pollution. This damages human health, threatens biodiversity of forests and rivers, and leads to coastal and marine pollution that exacerbates the effects of climate change, such as by predisposing reefs to coral bleaching. Altogether, it is clear that nitrogen pollution is something we should be taking very seriously. The amazing thing is that so few people have heard of the problem. Everyone knows about climate change and carbon footprints, but how many people are aware that nitrogen pollution is just as significant? One reason for this is that scientists and policy makers have traditionally specialised. Different experts have focused on different parts of the nitrogen story, and few have the expertise to see how all the issues fit together. This challenge is taken up by a major new research hub established under the UK Global Challenge Research Fund. The "GCRF South Asian Nitrogen Hub" is a partnership that brings together 32 leading research organisations with project engagement partners from the UK and South Asia. All eight countries of the South Asia Co-operative Environment Programme (SACEP) are included. The hub includes research on how to improve nitrogen management in agriculture, saving money on fertilizers and making better use of manure, urine and natural nitrogen fixation processes. It highlights options for more profitable and cleaner farming for India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and the Maldives. At the same time, the hub considers how nitrogen pollution could be turned back to fertilizer, for example by capturing nitrogen oxide gas from factories and converting it into nitrate. The fact that all the SACEP countries are included is really important. It means that lessons can be shared on good experiences as well as on whether there are cultural, economic and environmental differences that prevent better management practices from being adopted. It is also important from the perspective of international diplomacy, and provides an example to demonstrate how working together on a common problem is in everyone's interest. It puts the focus on future cooperation for a healthier planet, rather than on the past. The South Asian case provides for some exciting scientific, social, cultural and economic research challenges. The first is simply to get all the researchers talking together and understanding each other. There are dozens of languages in South Asia, matching the challenge met when different research disciplines come together. This is where developing a shared language around nitrogen can really help. There are lots of nitrogen forms ranging from unreactive atmospheric nitrogen (N2), to the air pollutants ammonia (NH3) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2), to nitrate (NO3-) which contaminates watercourses, and nitrous oxide (N2O) which is a greenhouse gas. The impacts of each of these are being studied to provide a better understanding of how they all fit together. The result is an approach that aims to give a much more coherent picture of the nitrogen cycle in South Asia: What is stopping us from taking action, and what can be done about it. One of the big expectations is that the economic value of nitrogen will help. India alone spends around £6 billion per year subsidising fertilizer supply. It means that South Asian governments are strongly motivated to use nitrogen better. At which point research from the South Asian hub can provide guidance on where they might start.

Humans have massively altered flows of nitrogen on our planet, leading to both benefits for food production and multiple threats to the environment. There are few places on Earth more affected than South Asia, with levels of nitrogen pollution rapidly increasing. The result is a web of interlinked problems, as nitrogen losses from agriculture and from fossil fuel combustion cause air and water pollution. This damages human health, threatens biodiversity of forests and rivers, and leads to coastal and marine pollution that exacerbates the effects of climate change, such as by predisposing reefs to coral bleaching. Altogether, it is clear that nitrogen pollution is something we should be taking very seriously. The amazing thing is that so few people have heard of the problem. Everyone knows about climate change and carbon footprints, but how many people are aware that nitrogen pollution is just as significant? One reason for this is that scientists and policy makers have traditionally specialised. Different experts have focused on different parts of the nitrogen story, and few have the expertise to see how all the issues fit together. This challenge is taken up by a major new research hub established under the UK Global Challenge Research Fund. The "GCRF South Asian Nitrogen Hub" is a partnership that brings together 32 leading research organisations with project engagement partners from the UK and South Asia. All eight countries of the South Asia Co-operative Environment Programme (SACEP) are included. The hub includes research on how to improve nitrogen management in agriculture, saving money on fertilizers and making better use of manure, urine and natural nitrogen fixation processes. It highlights options for more profitable and cleaner farming for India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and the Maldives. At the same time, the hub considers how nitrogen pollution could be turned back to fertilizer, for example by capturing nitrogen oxide gas from factories and converting it into nitrate. The fact that all the SACEP countries are included is really important. It means that lessons can be shared on good experiences as well as on whether there are cultural, economic and environmental differences that prevent better management practices from being adopted. It is also important from the perspective of international diplomacy, and provides an example to demonstrate how working together on a common problem is in everyone's interest. It puts the focus on future cooperation for a healthier planet, rather than on the past. The South Asian case provides for some exciting scientific, social, cultural and economic research challenges. The first is simply to get all the researchers talking together and understanding each other. There are dozens of languages in South Asia, matching the challenge met when different research disciplines come together. This is where developing a shared language around nitrogen can really help. There are lots of nitrogen forms ranging from unreactive atmospheric nitrogen (N2), to the air pollutants ammonia (NH3) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2), to nitrate (NO3-) which contaminates watercourses, and nitrous oxide (N2O) which is a greenhouse gas. The impacts of each of these are being studied to provide a better understanding of how they all fit together. The result is an approach that aims to give a much more coherent picture of the nitrogen cycle in South Asia: What is stopping us from taking action, and what can be done about it. One of the big expectations is that the economic value of nitrogen will help. India alone spends around £6 billion per year subsidising fertilizer supply. It means that South Asian governments are strongly motivated to use nitrogen better. At which point research from the South Asian hub can provide guidance on where they might start.

River deltas comprise only 1% of global landscapes, yet support over half a billion people. Deltas are tightly coupled social-ecological systems (SESs), but human exploitation, environmental degradation and threats from climate change increasingly threaten these delicate interfaces between land and water. The intractable development challenge addressed by this bid is how to avoid the collapse of South and SE Asian deltas as functioning, highly productive social-ecological systems in the face of human development and the projected consequences of climate change. The proposed Living Deltas Hub focuses on the delta SESs of three major rivers in South and Southeast Asia: the Red River and Mekong (Vietnam) and Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM: Bangladesh, India). Deltas form part of wider river basins and so the Hub will also engage with other riparian country researchers, in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. The stakes for the project are clear: 70% of the Mekong delta is highly vulnerable to flooding with 7 million people at risk. Sea level rise in Bangladesh could displace between 3 and 13 million by 2100. SE-Asian mega-deltas produce 88% of the world's rice, but the 98cm of sea level rise predicted under IPCC AR5 (2014) would render 16% of arable land in Bangladesh and 25% in Vietnam unusable by 2100. Upstream damming and sediment retention is also a major threat, with resulting delta subsidence putting 12 million people in 23 Asian cities at risk from water inundation. As human impacts increase, the need for locally-rooted sustainable development strategies underpinned by traditional knowledge becomes ever greater. The GCRF Living Deltas Hub will co-develop the transdisciplinary frameworks needed to understand delta SESs, and will work with delta-dwellers and policymakers to develop solutions that can help realise the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in delta contexts. The Hub is novel - no other existing or previous international delta initiative has specifically addressed the SDGs by co-creating new natural and cultural heritage understandings of deltas. It is timely, as it addresses the crucial challenges of SE Asian delta degradation early in the lifespan of the SDGs and so contributes to the development of SDG monitoring and planning - globally and regionally, as well as in country contexts. The Hub is innovative as it emphasizes transdisciplinary integration of the earth and life sciences, social sciences, humanities and arts, to address these common challenges The Hub will operate on a model of 'equitable partnership', involving delta-dwellers and the research community in developing knowledge and policy for better delta futures. The Hub comprises six innovative work packages co-developed with Global South partners and research institutes addressing specific in-country and delta-scale needs. Its new knowledge will serve to build capacity and shape policy at local, national, regional and global levels. The Hub will have lasting impact through improved livelihoods and more resilient communities, sustainable management and conservation, improved monitoring of SDG indicators and better policies for sustainable development. The Hub brings together a transdisciplinary team of experts and practitioners from Global 'North' and 'South'. Hub strengths are in: coupled human and natural systems analyses; demography and international development; natural hazard modelling and coastal resilience; environmental monitoring and modelling; policy and practice of resource management, hazard, risk and resilience; SDG-focused analyses of delta systems and their vulnerability to hazards; justice and governance; behavioral finance; delta nutrition and food security; and gender-sensitive research. Working together with stakeholders from delta countries, the research team have the knowledge, expertise and track record to build new understandings of delta change, new partnerships, and new solutions.