Future Earth is a major global research programme, which evolved from previous international programmes on human development, climate change, global environmental change and biodiversity. The integrated Land Ecosystem Atmosphere Process Study (iLEAPS) is a core project of Future Earth. As humans are now one of the strongest influences on climate and the environment, this second phase of iLEAPS (2014- 2024) is moving from research on natural pristine environments to investigating the interactions between natural and human environments. The project will also investigate the complex set of interactions that exist between the climate system, atmospheric composition/air quality, land use and land cover changes, socioeconomic development, and human decision-making. The research will provide information of relevance to the 8 key focal challenges identified by Future Earth in its 2014 Strategic Research Agenda: 1. Deliver water, energy and food for all. 2. Decarbonize socio-economic systems to stabilize the climate 3. Safeguard the terrestrial, freshwater and marine natural assets 4. Build healthy, resilient and productive cities 5. Promote sustainable rural futures to feed rising and more affluent populations 6. Improve human health through the improvement of human-environment interactions 7. Encourage sustainable and equitable consumption and production patterns 8. Increase social resilience to future threats iLEAPS acts as a communication hub and coordinator of world-wide scientific research in the field of ecosystem-atmosphere exchanges and the impact of those exchanges on the 8 societal challenges. iLEAPS promotes scientific excellence through developing international science initiatives that are multi-disciplinary, through bringing together the modelling community with satellite, experimental and field observational experts and through enabling communication and networking across the international science community. iLEAPS promotes leadership in science through capacity building in developing countries and support to young or Early Career scientists by hosting workshops, ensuring timely and relevant science to be available through their website and through training programmes. The NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) is taking over the iLEAPS International Project Office during 2016. CEH will undertake the activities below to enhance the impact of the iLEAPS project: 1 .IPO Operation and Co-ordination Activities * Work with the iLEAPS Scientific Steering Committee to deliver the iLEAPS Science Plan and Priority Research Topics * Maintain and enhance connections with relevant international projects, regional and national iLEAPS offices, providing advocacy and enlisting wide international participation * Promote capacity building through support of the Early Career Scientist network and supporting workshops and regional networks in the developing world * Work with Future Earth through national and international committees to deliver their vision * Secure additional funding to support these activities 2. Communication * Maintain and co-ordinate input to the iLEAPS website * Host, support and fund workshops and conferences 3. Science leadership * Start new, and maintain existing, Science Initiatives and Projects 4. Science Products * Generate integrated products for the world-wide community * Create new analysis tools for analysing data from experimental and field observations, satellites and computer models

Future Earth is a major global research programme, which evolved from previous international programmes on human development, climate change, global environmental change and biodiversity. The integrated Land Ecosystem Atmosphere Process Study (iLEAPS) is a core project of Future Earth. As humans are now one of the strongest influences on climate and the environment, this second phase of iLEAPS (2014- 2024) is moving from research on natural pristine environments to investigating the interactions between natural and human environments. The project will also investigate the complex set of interactions that exist between the climate system, atmospheric composition/air quality, land use and land cover changes, socioeconomic development, and human decision-making. The research will provide information of relevance to the 8 key focal challenges identified by Future Earth in its 2014 Strategic Research Agenda: 1. Deliver water, energy and food for all. 2. Decarbonize socio-economic systems to stabilize the climate 3. Safeguard the terrestrial, freshwater and marine natural assets 4. Build healthy, resilient and productive cities 5. Promote sustainable rural futures to feed rising and more affluent populations 6. Improve human health through the improvement of human-environment interactions 7. Encourage sustainable and equitable consumption and production patterns 8. Increase social resilience to future threats iLEAPS acts as a communication hub and coordinator of world-wide scientific research in the field of ecosystem-atmosphere exchanges and the impact of those exchanges on the 8 societal challenges. iLEAPS promotes scientific excellence through developing international science initiatives that are multi-disciplinary, through bringing together the modelling community with satellite, experimental and field observational experts and through enabling communication and networking across the international science community. iLEAPS promotes leadership in science through capacity building in developing countries and support to young or Early Career scientists by hosting workshops, ensuring timely and relevant science to be available through their website and through training programmes. The NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) is taking over the iLEAPS International Project Office during 2016. CEH will undertake the activities below to enhance the impact of the iLEAPS project: 1 .IPO Operation and Co-ordination Activities * Work with the iLEAPS Scientific Steering Committee to deliver the iLEAPS Science Plan and Priority Research Topics * Maintain and enhance connections with relevant international projects, regional and national iLEAPS offices, providing advocacy and enlisting wide international participation * Promote capacity building through support of the Early Career Scientist network and supporting workshops and regional networks in the developing world * Work with Future Earth through national and international committees to deliver their vision * Secure additional funding to support these activities 2. Communication * Maintain and co-ordinate input to the iLEAPS website * Host, support and fund workshops and conferences 3. Science leadership * Start new, and maintain existing, Science Initiatives and Projects 4. Science Products * Generate integrated products for the world-wide community * Create new analysis tools for analysing data from experimental and field observations, satellites and computer models

As the world moves towards low carbon emissions, the need for mining is as great as it has ever been. The contemporary paradigm is 'sustainable mining' that is profitable but protects environments, ecosystems and humans. The Philippines is a mineral-rich nation with a legacy and significant potential for future mining. The move towards sustainable mining in the Philippines requires novel and effective baselining and monitoring of contaminant histories, an understanding of the fate, transport and impacts of the contaminants, and methods for remediating and recovering resources from legacy mining areas and for promoting ecosystem and landscape recovery. In this project, we address all of these needs by adopting a catchment-based approach to evaluate legacy impacts and sustainable mining futures in the Philippines. We do so because all mining takes place in and affects mineralised river systems. Building on existing UK-Philippines collaborative research and our NERC DOST-PCIEERD funded Partnership and Project Development (PPD) grant, this project aims to realise a combined geomorphological- and biogeochemical-based approach to establish new baseline, environmental impact monitoring and numerical modelling approaches to determine resource potential and remediate, rehabilitate and manage catchments affected by legacy, contemporary and future mining. We will achieve this aim by addressing the following objectives: (1) Demonstrate and develop novel technologies and analytical approaches to establish baseline water and ecological quality in Philippine river catchments, and to monitor and evaluate the impact of future mines and sustainable mining practice; (2) Quantify the environmental impacts of contaminated sediment from legacy and contemporary mining in an exemplar Philippine catchment; (3) Develop and verify a 3D numerical model of how mine contaminated waste has moved through Philippine river catchments over centennial time scales and to predict future patterns of contamination under different climate change and management scenarios; (4) Determine the environmental impacts, risks and resource and remediation potential of Philippine mine tailings dams; (5) Propose a catchment-based approach in developing policies and strategies to manage mineralised watersheds in the Philippines and identify the best practices, challenges, and lessons learnt in managing mining catchments for sustainable implementation to other tropical nations. As an exemplar of a tropical, mineralised nation with a rich biodiversity, the development of sustainable mining in the Philippines will be of global relevance to achieving similar outcomes elsewhere.