Flooding is the deadliest and most costly natural hazard on the planet, affecting societies across the globe. Nearly one billion people are exposed to the risk of flooding in their lifetimes and around 300 million are impacted by floods in any given year. The impacts on individuals and societies are extreme: each year there are over 6,000 fatalities and economic losses exceed US$60 billion. These problems will become much worse in the future. There is now clear consensus that climate change will, in many parts of the globe, cause substantial increases in the frequency of occurrence of extreme rainfall events, which in turn will generate increases in peak flood flows and therefore flood vast areas of land. Meanwhile, societal exposure to this hazard is compounded still further as a result of population growth and encroachment of people and key infrastructure onto floodplains. Faced with this pressing challenge, reliable tools are required to predict how flood hazard and exposure will change in the future. Existing state-of-the-art Global Flood Models (GFMs) are used to simulate the probability of flooding across the Earth, but unfortunately they are highly constrained by two fundamental limitations. First, current GFMs represent the topography and roughness of river channels and floodplains in highly simplified ways, and their relatively low resolution inadequately represents the natural connectivity between channels and floodplains. This restricts severely their ability to predict flood inundation extent and frequency, how it varies in space, and how it depends on flood magnitude. The second limitation is that current GFMs treat rivers and their floodplains essentially as 'static pipes' that remain unchanged over time. In reality, river channels evolve through processes of erosion and sedimentation, driven by the impacts of diverse environmental changes (e.g., climate and land use change, dam construction), and leading to changes in channel flow conveyance capacity and floodplain connectivity. Until GFMs are able to account for these changes they will remain fundamentally unsuitable for predicting the evolution of future flood hazard, understanding its underlying causes, or quantifying associated uncertainties. To address these issues we will develop an entirely new generation of Global Flood Models by: (i) using Big Data sets and novel methods to enhance substantially their representation of channel and floodplain morphology and roughness, thereby making GFMs more morphologically aware; (ii) including new approaches to representing the evolution of channel morphology and channel-floodplain connectivity; and (iii) combining these developments with tools for projecting changes in catchment flow and sediment supply regimes over the 21st century. These advances will enable us to deliver new understanding on how the feedbacks between climate, hydrology, and channel morphodynamics drive changes in flood conveyance and future flooding. Moreover, we will also connect our next generation GFM with innovative population models that are based on the integration of satellite, survey, cell phone and census data. We will apply the coupled model system under a range of future climate, environmental and societal change scenarios, enabling us to fully interrogate and assess the extent to which people are exposed, and dynamically respond, to evolving flood hazard and risk. Overall, the project will deliver a fundamental change in the quantification, mapping and prediction of the interactions between channel-floodplain morphology and connectivity, and flood hazard across the world's river basins. We will share models and data on open source platforms. Project outcomes will be embedded with scientists, global numerical modelling groups, policy-makers, humanitarian agencies, river basin stakeholders, communities prone to regular or extreme flooding, the general public and school children.

Floods are among the most dangerous and costly natural hazards. Since 1980, floods have accounted for more than 200,000 fatalities globally and resulted in at least $1 trillion in economic losses. More than 50% of these deaths and a large proportion of the losses have occurred in densely populated low-lying deltas. Water related disasters are a major concern in deltas because they are located between the sea and major rivers, and hence are subject to flooding from the coastal zone and from rivers. Furthermore, deltas occupy large low-lying areas that are densely populated. In deltas, flooding arises from three main sources: (i) storm tides (storm surges plus tides); but also, from heavy precipitation, either through (ii) increased river discharge (fluvial) and/or (iii) direct surface runoff (pluvial). To date the majority of flood risk assessments in deltas (and other environments) have considered these main causes of flooding separately, because of the lack of information on their inter-dependence, and because of the perceived difficulty in handling the necessary underpinning statistics (known as joint probability analysis methods). However, the adverse consequences of a flood in a delta can be greatly increased when the coastal, fluvial and surface flood sources occur concurrently, or in close succession, resulting in a disproportionately extreme event referred to as 'compound flooding'. Despite their high impact potential, compound events remain poorly understood. This is why the World Climate Research Program has identified compound flood events as an international research priority. This project will bring together UK and Vietnamese expertise to map and characterise present and predict future flood risk, from coastal, fluvial, and surface sources and, uniquely, to assess the risk of compound flooding across the Mekong delta. Exposed to heavy monsoon rains that can cause both fluvial and pluvial flooding, and tropical cyclones that cause coastal flooding, the Mekong is one of the three most vulnerable deltas in the world. Our hypothesis is that previous flood assessments have underestimated the source drivers and hence the likelihood of flooding and associated risk, as compound events have not previously been considered. We propose a new integrated approach, to make a step change in our understanding and prediction of the source mechanisms driving compound flood events in delta regions. We will assess the large-scale drivers of variability in storms and monsoon rainfall that impact Viet Nam and develop novel (for both the past/present and future) meteorological datasets needed to drive the coupled flood models of the Mekong delta and its catchment. This involves use of next-generation climate models, which can simulate both intense monsoon events and tropical cyclones, providing datasets that are sufficiently large for our statistical analysis of flood risk. We will calculate the past/present and future likelihood of coastal and fluvial flooding across the delta, quantifying the occurrence of compound flooding events. For key hot spot areas, we will estimate areas of land inundated, numbers of people affected and how infrastructure and agriculture might be impacted, now and in the future. In particular we will examine low probability, high impact, events and quantify how compounding flood effects from multiple flood sources exacerbate impacts to coastal communities. Working in close partnership with our national, regional and provincial governmental project partners, we will consider management and planning options and provide guidance that will increase preparedness and resilience to future flood events. Our new methods will enable us, for the first time, to fully assess and predict all the source variables associated with compound events in the Mekong delta (at present and in the future) and will result in a major advance in the way compound flooding is understood, quantified and managed.

This Network aims to bring together an international group of scholars from different disciplines (including architectural history, history, literature and music) with an interest in the cultures of Enlightenment, reform and radicalism to discuss the complex of ways in which the practice, theory and experience of architecture contributed to debates about modernity and urban experience in the decades around 1800. It will do so through lens of the life of Thomas Rickman (1776-1841), which provides a springboard for discussing many of the issues involved. His internationally influential work, 'An Attempt to Discriminate the Styles of Architecture' (Liverpool, 1817) was the first architectural 'best seller', through which the educated public were taught how to identify and discuss architectural styles. Through studying and writing about architecture, Rickman transformed his identity from depressed bankrupt exile to successful professional architect. Rickman was closely associated with reformist circles, his architectural research was informed by methods of classification learned from the natural sciences and he was a pioneer of new methods of construction, but as a successful practitioner he worked for a wide range of clients, from wealthy industrialists, to Anglican parishes, municipal corporations and Cambridge colleges. His career - and the associated buildings and archive - provides a connecting thread across this project, a springing point for addressing broader research questions and engaging the general public through a touring exhibition, website and associated workshops and walking tours devoted to his life and work. Many of today's debates about the contribution of buildings, both new and old, to societal wellbeing have their counterparts in eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century discourse and juxtaposing the two will contribute a historical dimension to discussion of modern planning and heritage policies. Through networking symposia in Liverpool and London, and research workshops with site visits to buildings in Liverpool, Bristol and Birmingham, the Network will address how, in addition to its existing role as the most prestigious public site of display, architecture became a site of social experiment, embodying decisive shifts in medical, penal and educational theory, to be tested through the impact of new building forms. These debates intertwined buildings and books in a virtual sphere but the public sphere also had a spatial dimension: the new libraries, news rooms and lecture theatres in which such debates were encountered and performed and the transformation of towns through public and private investment (actual and anticipated) through which modernity was imagined and experienced. These involved changing patterns of patronage, funding and building, contributing to the professionalisation of the architect and the emergence of general contracting. The Network aims to frame public discourse about architecture in relation to the transformation of the public sphere, both through changes in print culture and contemporary economic and social changes wrought by war, capitalisation, industrialisation and urbanisation. Through print and travel, this discourse had a global dimension and the Network will develop international connections in order to enable a globally comparative approach. Our objective is to build capacity for ongoing collaboration and future international comparative research.

We will work with young people to use digital technology to transform adolescent mental health and provide a safe, and supportive, digital environment to tackle the unmet need arising from mental health disorders in those aged 10-24 years old. We are facing a youth mental health crisis; in the UK, one in eight young people have a mental health disorder, and one in four young women aged 17-19 have significant depression or anxiety with half of those having self-harmed; non-suicidal self-harm has nearly tripled over the past 10 years, while suicide rates per 100,000 adolescents have almost doubled. However, less than a third of all young people with mental health disorders receive any treatment. Many mental health and wellbeing apps exist, but most have no evidence base and some could even be harmful. Meanwhile, few research-based digital interventions have been shown to have impact in the real world. The youth mental health crisis has coincided with huge changes in society with creation of the 'digital environment' where being online and using social media has become central to young people's lives. While social media can be a helpful place for accessing information, exchanging views and receiving support, it has also been linked with depression, suicide and self-harm. Yet not all young people are at risk of mental health problems with social media we don't yet understand why some young people are more vulnerable than others. The COVID-19 crisis has been associated with increased mental health problems and greater online activity in young people. While their need to access trusted support online is greater than ever, social media platforms are not designed to meet mental health needs of young people. Aims & objectives. We will work with young people in our Young Person Advisory Group to: 1. increase understanding of the relationship between digital risk, resilience and adolescent mental health. 2. develop and evaluate preventative and personalised digital interventions. We aim to: - identify risk and resilience factors related to troublesome online experiences and activities, to prevent or reduce the emergence of depression, anxiety, and self-harm in young people. - understand how individual differences affect digital engagement (e.g. with social media and games) and adolescent brain and psychosocial development. - build, adapt and pilot new a generation of personalised and adaptive digital interventions incorporating a mechanistic understanding of human support with a new digital platform for delivery and trials in adolescent mental health conditions. - develop and test a novel socially assistive robot to help regulate difficult emotions with a focus on adolescents who self-harm. - develop and test a new digital tool to help adolescents better manage impulsive and risky behaviour with a focus on reducing the risk of self-harm. Applications & benefits. This work will translate new knowledge into practical tools to support young people negotiate the digital world, develop resilience and protect their mental health. Our involvement of young people means that the outputs from the research will be suitable and meaningful. Young people will be actively involved shaping the research at all stages. Young people, their caregivers, teachers, clinicians and charities will benefit from a range of co-created apps and tools to manage youth mental health issues. Young people will benefit from research training offered as part of their involvement. Policy makers and academics will benefit from new understandings of risk and resilience in the digital world to support novel interventions and evidence-based policy. Our work will establish a new, ethical and responsible way of designing digital platforms and tools that supports young people's mental health. Our Mental Health & Digital Technology Policy Liaison Group and Partners Board will translate our research into a step-change in mental health outcomes.

Research Context. Waste is a significant problem facing a rapidly urbanising world, with challenges at every stage including waste prevention, treatment/management, recycling and reuse, and the health and ecosystem impacts of poorly managed waste. Rising to these challenges, particularly in relation to sustainable cities, is high on the policy agenda at local, national and international levels. For example a recent (2013) UK Government report on waste noted that: We need to develop further the concept of a circular economy, where one person's waste becomes another's valuable resource...Making the changes needed may require innovation and creative thinking... Aims and Objectives The aim of the Network is to develop a forum for knowledge exchange and debate across art & humanities and science disciplines and subject areas with a common focus on waste treatment, management and innovation. This will seek to develop responses to the question: how can arts based approaches inform waste management innovation techniques and processes; and secondly, (how) does place (local context, identity, culture, governance) make a difference to waste generation, waste innovation delivery and uptake? This aim will be met through the following objectives: i)To establish an interdisciplinary network of Europe-wide academics, artists, scientists, practitioners, stakeholders, and interested end-users. We will run four workshops in 4 European cities (London, Amsterdam, Maastricht, Bangor in Wales) to explore and develop ideas, issues and possible solutions and learn from each other, and also run a number of 'pop-up' events piloting arts-based approaches to public engagement and waste. A 'wiki style' open source website will provide network support. ii) to identify particular sorts of waste (e.g. industrial/domestic, organic/manufactured, chemicals/metals, waste-energy, water) and to identify specific 'intervention points', which have good potential for creative interdisciplinary innovation. Applications and Benefits Bringing together different disciplines and different 'communities of place and practice' to address a common problem will have the primary benefit of structured knowledge exchange and capacity building across a number of divides (e.g. academic/practitioner, geographical, artists and scientists). The process of creating and participating in the network will therefore be its key outcome/benefit. The network will also make connections (through the pop up events and through the website) with 'the general public', enabling 'local and lay expertise' to inform the network. We aim to identify, through an iterative process of workshops and facilitated discussion, not only how 'good practice' in one area can be uptaken in another, but to identify what sorts of waste, and what sorts of 'intervention points', may be best suited for taking forward creative interdisciplinary solutions, and to seek future funding to develop these, ensuring a legacy for the network. We also anticipate a number of smaller 'spin off' innovations, which may be quite simple, such as better recycling leaflet design and event management. We aim for the long term benefits to be more sustainable waste management and treatment innovation systems and improved governance including citizen participation, enabling waste to be more sustainably treated and for more value to be extracted from waste streams. This would have clear benefits for the health, wealth and wellbeing of cities and their citizens.