OpenCLIM-LANDS will provide decision makers with the insights urgently needed to put the UK on a path to deliver net zero emissions by 2050, while also delivering climate resilient soil health, food security, and biodiversity net-gain. We will identify spatially explicit intervention scenarios for land uses that exploit synergies between climate mitigation, adaptation, and biodiversity. We will create a validated, UK-wide, spatially explicit integrated modelling framework, OpenCLIM-LANDS, to evaluate potential net zero pathways. OpenCLIM-LANDS quantifies the implications of land interventions on soil carbon and health, biodiversity, agriculture, and flood risk, while exploring the synergies and trade-offs between interventions. Close stakeholder engagement will provide the opportunity for governments, agencies, and NGOs to engage with farming groups and academics to develop win-win net zero solutions. Our project has extensive stakeholder alignment through its partners and project networks with DEFRA, DESNZ, CCC, JNCC, EA, Nature Scotland, DAERA, land managers, farming groups, the Soil Association Exchange and the ELM Network+. OpenCLIM-LANDS builds on the existing spatially explicit modelling framework, OpenCLIM, developed under previous UKRI funding. OpenCLIM is capable of simulating climate change risks to agriculture, flooding risk and biodiversity, including the influence of alternative land use intervention scenarios, but was not designed to specifically look at net-zero pathways. While a wealth of observational data exists for UK biodiversity, flooding risk and crop yields, there is a lack of empirical data on soil carbon storage and soil health. To extend the capability of OpenCLIM we will parameterise, and ground truth soil carbon and soil health using empirical data, develop and validate a novel framework for soil carbon and soil health evaluation, and develop and trial robotic monitoring for measuring and verifying soil carbon and health. Data relating to soil carbon and long-term carbon storage potential will feed into OpenCLIM-LANDS to give real world grounding to its carbon-evaluation, while soil microbiome data, as a qualifier of soil health will be reconciled with OpenCLIM's projections for the terrestrial biosphere. We will also clarify linkages between soil carbon resources and their regulation of soil health. Alternative scenarios of land use and management interventions have different implications for biodiversity conservation, will sequester different amounts of carbon, and result in up/down regulation of soil health. These dissimilar carbon resources will select for different soil biological assemblages and therefore soil health under contrasting intervention regimes. The habitats in which the interventions are applied will also affect the potential for carbon drawdown and biodiversity outcomes. When considered at scale, scenarios of interventions will result in spatial gradients of sequestered carbon, soil health and biodiversity outcomes. Similarly, the climate resilience of these carbon and biodiversity landscape assets will also differ. We will explore multiple scenarios of land use interventions linked to landscape recovery and GGR interventions. The project will culminate in the identification of new, spatially explicit, intervention scenarios for land use interventions exploiting synergies and minimising trade-offs. Through our extensive farmer/stakeholder network we will engage in two-way exchange with the practitioners who will ultimately deliver a net zero landscape. We will listen to their voice, respond to it, and share our research and decision support tools with them.

The Stern and Dasgupta reviews on the economics of climate change and biodiversity respectively make clear, wealth creation, ecosystem health, and quality of life are inextricably linked. The UK government is committed to showing global leadership in climate change and biodiversity (and in their intersection) building on commitment that will be made in 2021 for climate change at Glasgow (COP26) and biodiversity at Kunming (COP15). Furthermore, the UK government's 25-Year Environment Plan includes the pledge to leave the environment in a better state than it is in now, while the Environment Bill currently going through parliament commits the government to set legally enforceable targets for different areas including climate, air quality, water quality, land management and biodiversity. Within these broad areas, there are numerous decisions requiring scientific input that have to be made in short timeframes (6-12 months). However, Universities are adept at doing excellent research within the typical three to five years projects, and UKRI is highly skilled at selecting the most promising of these projects. This presents the problem of delivering interdisciplinary research (IDR) with stakeholders to address challenges and provide tangible outcomes and environmental solutions within much shorter public and private sector policy cycles. The challenge we identify for this call is urgency and rapid delivery of IDR to provide a clear path from discovery to translation and impact. Our approach within AGILE is to build capacity within Oxford University to rapidly bring together IDR, and identify evidence-based solutions to major social and environmental challenges. AGILE is composed three overarching goals. First is delivering a collection of Sprint projects, characterized by policy pull for their socio-economic importance, timeliness for policy and practice, co-creation with stakeholders, and researchers with the capability to communicate effectively across boundaries to adopt a whole systems approach. Goal 1 will deliver five central objectives: 1) Demand-led Sprint formulation through engagement with stakeholders, 2) Convene Sprint teams to set tangible outcomes and robust action plans, 3) Monitor and evaluate progress to accelerate projects ensuring optimal deployment of resources, 4) Creation of a body of knowledge on effective approaches to IDR and the capability of IDR researchers, to be embedded in the university culture and shared with UKRI, and crucially 5) Uptake partnerships and reformulation to ensure implementable solutions. Second is to create a critical mass of IDR researchers, through 1) capturing lessons learned from these Sprints and translating them into training opportunities for the wider research community, 2) building a community of IDR researchers through shared learning and ongoing engagement with the programme and policy-makers, and 3) and enabling rapid development of AGILE teams creating capability and supporting career development. Third is the AGILE legacy, of creating a culture shift in the way universities evaluate IDR and work towards ensuring the outputs of IDR are recognised as of equal value in recruitment and retention policies. This will ensure increased opportunities for funding and delivering excellent interdisciplinary research, with users, providing the evidence base for effective policy and practice, in a more realistic policy-cycle timeframe. AGILE will enable transformational change in the way high-quality interdisciplinary research informs decision-making on how we manage the natural environment in a rapidly warming world.

ResAnth addresses the interlinked risks of climate change, coastal flooding and erosion, and the UK's historic waste legacy for coastal community and ecosystem resilience. Coastal flooding and erosion will accelerate under climate change. Our past industrialisation has left a pollution legacy of over 1,700 historic coastal landfills and 3,000 hectares of contaminated land also at risk from coastal flooding and/or erosion (CCC 2018; POST 2021). By 2100 the number of people exposed to coastal floods and erosion, and therefore legacy coastal waste, will increase significantly and almost half legacy waste sites are within 100m of environmentally sensitive areas such as protected wetlands or bathing waters (Brand et al. 2018). Many sites are already eroding, releasing pollution, plastics, asbestos and/or medical waste into our coastal environments with limited understanding of pollution risk to people or the marine environment. Without intervention one in 10 could erode by 2055. Many UK coastal landfills are at increasing future risk e.g., at Lyme Regis, the Spittles Lane landfill contains 50,000 tonnes of waste on an eroding cliff top and will "almost certainly erode" releasing material to the beach without intervention (Nichols et al. 2020). How we manage the intergenerational burden of our past coastal waste disposal and its accelerated risk to society and ecosystems in a changing climate is a "burning imperative" (Environment Agency 2022). In a "call to arms", coastal Local Authorities have identified the enormity of this problem with almost 50% reporting waste sites eroding, or 'at risk'. Yet we do not have sufficient evidence to: 1) build robust business cases to manage (by defending, remediating or 'letting alone') these sites; 2) inform sustainable coastal management decision-making (Shoreline Management Plans) that takes account of the presence of waste; and 3) engage and support those communities who will live with these decisions. Working in 3 'at-risk' UK geographic areas we will: Investigate the risk of waste and pollution release under more severe flooding and coastal erosion scenarios. Assess the harm this pollution will do to coastal environments and adjacent communities. Increase collaboration between a range of stakeholders to understand the different kinds of environmental and social challenges involved. Facilitate inclusive debate on future efforts to manage these risks using established methods and arts-based activities to reach new audiences. Work with communities and policy makers to explore and co-develop policy options and practical actions that will build resilience, and identify potential co-benefits for people and place. Ensure the project's approach, methods and key findings for coastal resilience measures can be scaled across the UK. Assessing the range of risks associated with coastal waste release and building an inclusive and practical 'toolkit' of responses will benefit: 1) organisations who manage the coast, conserve and protect people and habitats; and 2) landowners and communities who use and appreciate the coastal environment for its amenities and cultural value. We have designed a novel 'Community Atlas' to share information, conclusions, and arts outputs with these groups, and that allows citizens to upload their own information and stories about coastal change. ResAnth has been co-conceived with our Project Partners through collaboration, in particular, with; 1) Environment Agency, local authorities, and coastal partnerships to identify research needs; 2) the Climate Change Committee and Policy Connect to understand policy gaps; and 3) engagement with communities through arts-science initiatives.