A 1 m sea level rise is almost certain in the next century and it is estimated that 20% of England's coastal defences could fail under just half this rise. Ambitious climate mitigation and adaptation plans may protect 400,000 - 500,000 people, but flood and coastal erosion risks cannot be fully eliminated - we cannot build infinitely high sea walls. Worldwide 150 million people could be affected by sea level rise in the next 30 years. Better ways to measure, forecast, warn of and respond to coastal flooding are thus required. Using Penzance and Dawlish we will demonstrate a new monitoring system able to issue vital real-time hazard alerts and flood data to national government agencies. Working with the Environment Agency (EA), Met. Office, Channel Coastal Observatory (CCO), Cornwall Council, Teignbridge District Council, Capgenimi and National Trust, we will build on previous research using digital communication, data networking and citizen science. Our recent project (WireWall) created a unique overtopping sensor that we will develop into a low-cost hazard monitoring system for long-term deployments using telemetry to transfer data. Another project (SWEEP) created a south west regional computer simulation that updates daily to forecast coastal hazard 3 days in advance. The CCO hosts both projects online alongside the Regional Coastal Monitoring Programmes (RCMP) across England. This project will incorporate our new hazard data into the SWEEP service through a new web-accessible, open source data staging web service, thus linking models and new monitoring to validate current hazard services. The new web service will expose existing, coastal, river and weather data, while the new system will include: 1) a novel wave overtopping sensor to measure water levels and waves just before they impact a sea wall in addition to the depth, volume and speed of the water as it overtops onto public access areas behind the sea defence; 2) cameras to validate wave conditions and confirm the occurrence of overtopping events; 3) laser measurements of the pre- and post-storm beach levels during an event; and 4) an international citizen science programme, CoastSnap, that monitors beach conditions over time through photographs. The system will use the UK's tide gauge network to trigger the measurement of potentially hazardous conditions when water levels reach the sea walls and return real-time alerts when flooding is detected. This information will allow validation of the SWEEP computer alert service. With the EA's flood forecast team we will use this information to refine their local hazard thresholds and to understand the uncertainty in local conditions at the sea wall sites due to their large (many km's) distance from national monitoring stations. The measured, visual and audio data will be used in an interactive coastal walk, and made accessible through an Augmented Reality (AR) phone application, available for IOS and Android devices. The AR walk will guide people to CoastSnap photo posts, encouraging participation in the RCMP beach monitoring. Promotion of the walk through the Tourist Information Centres and Twitter will raise community awareness of changing coastal hazards and shoreline management initiatives such as #floodaware and #CoastSafe. The team of oceanographers, engineers, data managers, a digital artist, a poet and a software developer will apply their expertise in different disciplines to significantly improve the accuracy and effectiveness of existing coastal hazard warning services. They will engage the public through an easily accessible phone app and participation in citizen science monitoring. Information will be archived at BODC and made available under the NERC Data Policy. This online catalogue is designed to be easily found by the Google dataset search engine and ensures our data are FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interpretable and Re-usable). Keywords: Hazard monitoring; Coastal forecasting; Flood aware; Hazard warning

Emergency services (Ambulance Service; Fire & Rescue Service) play a crucial role during flood response, as they participate in joint command-control structures and are central to rescue and relief efforts (Frost 2002). Emergency services are often legislated to meet defined response times. UK legislation requires that emergency responders comply with strict timeframes when reacting to incidents. Category 1 responders such as the Ambulance Service and the Fire & Rescue Service are required to reach 75% of 'Red 1' (high-priority, life-threatening incidents) in less than 8 and 10 minutes respectively from the time when the initial call was received. This includes blue-light incidents such as life-threatening and traumatic injury, cardiac arrest, road collisions, and individuals trapped by floodwaters. In 2015-16, only one England ambulance trust met the response time targets and 72.5% of the most serious (Red 1) calls were responded to within 8 minutes, against a legislative target of 75% (National Audit Office, 2017). Between 2007-2014, the highest percentage Scottish Ambulance Service achieved was 74.7% in 2013 (HEAT standard). Rising demand combined with inefficient call handling and dispatch systems are often cited as the reasons for missing the above targets. However, response times can also be affected by flood episodes which may limit the ability of emergency responders to navigate through a disrupted road network (as was the case during the widespread UK flooding in 2007). The impact of flooding on road networks is well known and is expected to get worse in a changing climate with more intense rainfall. For example, in Portland, USA under one climate change scenario, road closures due to flooding could increase time spent travelling by 10% (Chang et al. 2010). The impact of an increased number of flooding episodes, due to climate change, on road networks has also been modelled by for the Boston Metropolitan area, USA (Suarez et al., 2005). This study found that between 2000 and 2100 delays and trip-time losses could increase by 80% and 82% respectively. The Pitt Review (2008) suggested that some collaborative decision making during the 2007 event was hampered by insufficient preparation and a lack of information, and better planning and higher levels of protection for critical infrastructure are needed to avoid the loss of essential services such as water and power. More recently, the National Flood Resilience Review (HMG, 2016) exposes the extent to which a significant proportion of critical assets are still vulnerable to flooding in England and Wales. In particular, it highlights that the loss of infrastructure services can have significant impacts on people's health and wellbeing. This project will combine: (i) an established accessibility mapping approach; (ii) existing national flood datasets; and (iii) a locally tested, recent-expanded real-time flood nowcasting/forecasting system to generate accessibility mapping, vulnerability assessment and adaptation evaluation for various flood conditions and at both the national and city-region scale. The project will be delivered via three sequential Work Packages, including: (a) Mapping emergency service accessibility according to legislative timeframes; (b) Assessing the vulnerability of populations (care homes, hospices and schools); and (c) Evaluating adaptation strategies (e.g. positioning standby vehicles).

Given that SARS-CoV-2 RNA is detectable in faeces for prolonged periods (even for otherwise asymptomatic individuals), efforts have so far concentrated on trying to map its prevalence using sewage samples, e.g. via our partners at Bangor University (NERC Urgency Grant NE/V004883/1). Because live viruses have also been detected in the stools of patients affected by COVID19, there is growing concern about the risks of faecal-oral transmission to humans and/or wildlife (where the virus first originated) via sewage outflows and overspill. This is particularly worrying as, for example, hundreds of tonnes of raw sewage enter the Thames each year when sewers overflow during rainstorms, effectively bypassing sewage treatment works (STWs) when they exceed capacity. We combine expertise from Life Sciences and Mathematics at Imperial College, corona virology at Nottingham University, and a network of collaborators to fill this gap and to complement ongoing work in related (but not overlapping) areas. We have also already secured £49K of internal funding from Imperial College to prime the lab work, as a direct in-kind contribution. First, the potential for sewage (via effluent discharge, storm overflows, and other forms of run-off) to contribute to transmission to humans and wildlife will be measured by assessing RNA concentration and viral infectivity from environmental samples, from sewage outflows down to rivers, estuaries, and faeces from wildlife. Second, using data on concentrations of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in sewage and in the environment, we will provide models of population-level prevalence of COVID19 and elucidate key environmental transmission routes for management.

Whilst radioactivity has always been present in the environment, industrial and military use of nuclear materials over the past 70 years has led to numerous deliberate and accidental releases of radioactive materials. The impact of these materials on humans and wider ecosystems is controlled by the behaviour of the radionuclides in the environment. In turn, radionuclide behaviour and resultant bioavailability is dictated by their concentration and chemical form. Radioactive 'hot' particles are often an important part of releases to the environment and thus they are commonly found at nuclear sites (e.g. Sellafield) or in areas impacted by deliberate releases (e.g. Ravenglass and Eskmeals, UK) or accidents (e.g. Chernobyl and Fukushima). After release, particle-bound radionuclides have been shown to behave very differently in the environment when compared with homogeneously dispersed contamination. However, there is a distinct lack of knowledge about the composition of, and chemical form of radionuclides in hot particles, or of the processes that control their longer-term stability, fate and impact, particularly at the molecular scale. This leaves significant gaps in our conceptual models of radionuclide environmental behaviour, making it difficult to facilitate robust, long-term predictions of radionuclide transport and fate. Ultimately, the impact of these uncertainties is profound: a lack of confidence in our ability to predict radionuclide behaviour in the environment impacts on the public perception of priority issues, for example, the geological disposal of nuclear waste and the implementation of new nuclear build. As a result, better quantification and understanding of the short- to long-term behaviour and potential impacts of hot particles in the environment is crucial. Reflecting the above, we will use a range of laboratory experiments and field samples combined with state-of-the-art characterisation tools, to develop a clear understanding of hot particle evolution in the environment over timescales ranging from months to decades. The majority of our experimental work will focus on uranium-rich hot particles due to their prevalence in the environment, and we will alter these under a range of environmental conditions in flowing columns, for periods of > 1 year. Throughout, we will monitor changes in solution chemistry; further, we will use a range of synchrotron, mass spectrometry, and electron microscopy techniques to assess changes over time in particle structure, chemistry, and isotopic composition, as well as characterising the formation of any secondary phases. Complementary to our column experiments, and in an effort to understand longer timescale reactions (years to decades) and assess processes across a wider range of particle types, we will use the same techniques to characterise particles from contaminated field samples (e.g. from the Sellafield area and Eskmeals firing range). The information from this work will lead to a much-improved conceptual model of radionuclide behaviour when hot particles are present in the environment. Further, by working with a range of key stakeholders (e.g. EA, DSTL), we can use this knowledge to predict radiological risk at contaminated sites better and inform land management / monitoring practices.

Availability of knowledge of the processes, dynamics, landforms and materials of the physical landscape is vital for sustainable environmental management and for development projects, risk reduction, resource use, and future planning under scenarios of climate change. It is essential for ecological conservation and biodiversity strategies and for conservation of our landscape heritage in Britain and Northern Ireland (NI). This proposal is for the foundation stage of an ambitious project to establish an interactive website which will make existing research knowledge of the physical landscape of Britain readily accessible to end-users. It will see the development of the "Physical Landscape of Britain" website (landscapebritain.org.uk), targeted at professional end-users, which include engineering consulting companies, government agencies concerned with environmental management and conservation, and major landowners and landscape managers. The major end-user partners involved in this proposal, representative of these spheres, are: Mouchel and Halcrow companies; Natural England, The Environment Agency; and The National Trust. Geomorphology is the science that analyses how physical processes, act on the Earth's surface to create landforms and landscapes. This project is promoted by the British Society for Geomorphology (BSG) on behalf of the geomorphological research community in Britain. Much research output is not readily available to potential end-users and there is a lack of awareness of potential benefits of this knowledge. This project is designed to overcome those deficiencies. The foundation phase will build on a pilot study to develop a spatial database of information, create a digital bibliography and produce an interactive website that provides lists and a digest of existing relevant published data. This database will be searchable both textually and spatially through a web map interface. This application is for funding to enable the crucial stage of design of the website interface and database to be completed, for a usable website to be populated with information for selected major parts of Britain, and for the facility to be made available to all potential end-users. End-user partners will provide guidance on what kind of information they require, how they use the information and what are the existing gaps in knowledge and thus help to design a valuable resource, and also eventually to set the future research agenda relevant to society's needs. The project will have feedback to the academic community in increasing their awareness of the key issues and challenges being faced by end-users in environmental management and thus for academics to see how their research could help. This project will provide essential evidence for evidence-based Government policy-making and will increase effectiveness of public services and design of appropriate policy and practices by enhancing availability of knowledge of landscape processes and materials, of past changes and environmental change impacts, and occurrence of hazards as inputs to sustainable environmental management and conservation. Economic benefits will arise from reducing desk study costs and increasing awareness of geomorphological and ground conditions affecting development, as well as more effective planning of infrastructure in relation to natural hazards and likely future environmental changes. Ecological conservation requires geodiversity and the maintenance of the physical habits so geomorphology is an essential component of ecological management. The landscape heritage and enjoyment of landscape are important for a high quality of life and health so knowledge of process and evolution of landscape are fundamental to aiding interpretation and fulfilling those needs. This project aims to provide access to information, data and knowledge on the geomorphology of the British landscape to professional end-users to enable them to deliver these benefits.