The assessment of water resources at both the global and regional scales is currently a major concern for scientists and policy makers due to the increasing incidence of water scarcity and extreme water-related hazards affecting the globe in the last 50 years. This concern will become even more relevant should future climate projections for the XXI Century become a reality in the coming years. The hydrological modelling community is aware that there is a need to look at the large-scale fluxes of water but also to consider the use of water at smaller scales. However, much of the work done until this moment on this regard has focused on achieving hyper-resolution of models, while the ability of these new modelling approaches to provide relevant and reliable information to catchment water management has received relatively less attention. This project initiates a collaboration between the large-scale modelling and the catchment modelling communities, aiming to fill a gap whose existence is often recognised but sparsely studied. The overall research objective of this project is to explore and design an approach for integrating Catchment Water Management Models (CWMM) with Large-Scale Hydrological Models (LHM), and to assess its potential and limitations to enhance the quality of information LHMs provide at a regional scale. This project will deliver an integrated programme of knowledge exchange - on selected the CWMM and LHM, AQUATOOL and CWatM respectively, and their capabilities - and research - developing a proof-of-concept to couple both models in the heavily managed, data-rich Ebro River Basin (Spain), in collaboration with three leading institutions on global and regional hydrological modelling. The main project output will be a proof-of-concept of an advanced CWatM model for the Ebro River basin that efficiently couples water management and other human interactions with the hydrological system. The new version of CWatM will allow for a better evaluation of human impacts on water availability, overcoming the current limitations LHMs to faithfully represent regional hydrology. This will translate into substantial progress not only for the hydrological science community, but for the climate and earth system science communities. The outcomes of this project will be the onset of further collaborative research to produce a generalised version of the proof-of-concept which will be applicable to understand and address pressing regional water issues, such as transboundary conflicts, which are traditionally hampered by data securitisation. The generalised version can also serve as a benchmark for the benefits of modelling-based water resources assessment and management in developing countries with low water governance, which may encourage investments in capacity building and data collation to conduct their own analyses, which this partnership can support.

The work to help internationalise ADVENT and facilitate assessment of its findings in the long term will be conducted in three phases. In the initial phase, KAPtEN and ADVENT teams will produce a set of questions and initial statements that are relevant internationally and that will be explored further, building on ADVENT's four initial workshops. In particular, a workshop on the role of energy in ecosystem services and natural capital conceptual frameworks will set the basis for characterising the impacts of specific energy chains and energy infrastructure development on the UK's marine, aquatic, coastal and terrestrial environments, and understand how different means of sourcing energy from outside the UK would impact global ecosystem services. Similarly, a workshop on currently projected energy pathways will look at what we currently know about the nexus between energy, land and water and the trade-offs and synergies associated with different patterns of energy development. These are important topics that will grow with the increasing pressure and desire to move towards a sustainable use of resources. The very first contribution of KAPtEN will be to develop a simplified web portal to facilitate the crowd-sourcing of a literature review around each of the questions and statements arising from these workshops, which will be turned into a databank of resources exportable in reference management systems (e.g. Endnote). In the second phase, a new, professional-looking and easy to use ICT platform will be developed and tested on the valuation of Energy and Nature together. The principle behind the ICT platform is that users more easily react to statements that are already made, by confirming or contradicting them. Thus the ICT platform will start from a set of key statements that together will form the 'Map of Current Knowledge' - or the MoCK. The ICT platform hosting the MoCK statements will include options to link new research papers and to explain how these papers support, challenge, or contradict the existing statements. Anyone can link papers, not just the authors. This is the crowd-sourcing part of the project. If a paper is linked to a MoCK statement, the authors (who are the 'experts'), will be invited to revise the explanations if they wish and to rank other papers up or down, so that with time the papers voted 'up' by most experts will appear at the top. In the final phase, we will publish 10-20 key statements on the valuation of Energy and Nature together, in a joint ADVENT-KAPtEN effort, including international partners, and co-chaired by senior colleagues with extensive experience, to be submitted to a high-impact journal (e.g. Nature Energy). These 10-20 statements will be the ADVENT MoCK that will be posted on the KAPtEN ICT platform and start the continuous assessment process of forming the Map of New Knowledge - or the MoNK. We will use our extensive networks through connections with our international partners, Future Earth, Tyndall Centre partners, IPBES, IPCC and others to invite people to link their papers and show how they inform the assessment made in ADVENT with their international knowledge. As the KAPtEN ICT platform develops, we will be working with Future Earth and IPBES partners to develop other MoCKs, so that with time, KAPtEN will make a step change in our capacity to transparently and continuously assess the state of science, inter-link fields such as Energy and Nature, and inform policy of the environment and beyond. One of our international project partner said 'this ICT platform has the potential to revolutionize the way scientific assessments are done, by opening up the process for contributions by the entire research community, and by establishing a transparent yet organized set of rules to highlight the emerging consensus and issues'.

A reliable water supply and a successful energy transition are two necessary conditions for a sustainable future. Yet we know little about how the switch to intermittent renewables (wind, solar) for our energy supply will affect the operation of our water infrastructure. The time for planning for this is now: unpreparedness in the face of energy supply fluctuations has wide-ranging economic impacts, as demonstrated by the developing energy crisis (as of January 2022). The dual aim of this New Investigator Award proposal is to develop a fast water-energy simulator to quantify the impacts of a decarbonised nationwide power grid on water resource systems, and to demonstrate its integration into state-of-the-art strategic water resource planning. This simulator will be the first to enable the exploration of the joint dynamics of water resource systems and low carbon energy systems at timescales ranging from hourly to multi-annual. This project will also promote an improved understanding of flexibility as an opportunity to adapt to a decarbonised grid as well as to buffer against drought. To achieve its aims, the project will address the following challenges: (C1) How can we represent the variability of weather-dependent inputs (wind, solar irradiation, rainfall) and their consequences in coupled water-energy systems? Weather evolves at fine timescales (e.g., hourly) and low precipitations can threaten water supply over a few years. Representing how these timescales interact, while including the national power grid, is a challenge that has yet to be tackle by academic research. To tackle this, the project will implement a fast hourly water-energy system simulator including the national electricity grid, both to assess energy transition impacts on water systems and measure first-order benefits of using the built-in flexibility of water systems to manage energy demand. (C2) How can we identify decision-relevant scenarios across the full range of uncertainty created by climate change, population growth and the energy transition? This project will use the coupled simulator to explore potential climate-energy-population futures and address this question, for the first time integrating energy transition scenarios into water planning. (C3) How can we integrate the transition to a low-carbon grid into strategic water resource planning? This project will achieve that, first on a single piece of water-energy infrastructure (e.g., desalination plant connected both to local renewable energy and to the grid), then at the scale of a regional water system supplying several million users in the East of England. This project will help the water sector (companies and regulators) plan for the triple challenge of climate change, population growth, and the energy transition, and deliver a reliable water supply at affordable rates for water users.

Although Colombia, Cuba and Mexico report nearly 100% access to electricity, not all households are necessarily provided with good quality energy services, such as heating, cooling and use of appliances. In fact, around a third of Mexican households are unable to access an adequate level of energy services. Similarly, annual energy supply interruptions in Colombia add up to 38 hours per year. However, energy services are essential to wellbeing. Indeed, access to adequate, reliable, affordable and clean energy services underpins a range of human capabilities and when unmet, results in a situation of energy vulnerability (EV). A shortfall in realised energy services can be caused by various socio-technical, institutional and environmental factors, including: unreliable or poor quality infrastructure; gendered differences in energy access and use; high energy prices; social isolation; and stressors caused by intensifying climatic changes. The impacts of this are wide ranging, from adverse health, wellbeing, and social participation outcomes, to limited economic development. There are no official EV-related strategies in the three countries, and each one is at a different stage in addressing the issue. In Cuba there has been no research or policy attention to EV; in Mexico, energy poverty is gaining increasing policy attention and a pilot monitoring observatory was launched last year; and Colombia has recognised energy poverty as a policy priority within the National Energy Plan, but has not yet instituted mechanisms for measurement or alleviation. Following collaborative workshops and in-person meetings with stakeholders during Spring 2019, this co-designed project (ESLatinA) responds to the urgent need for comprehensive understanding, evidence and governance capacity on EV in Colombia, Cuba and Mexico, in ways that are inclusive and recognise the diverse and dynamic nature of societies. Furthermore, ESLatinA explicitly acknowledges the link between EV and energy systems resilience, and the transformative potential of fostering energy solidarity, a concept that implies a paradigm shift in energy discourse that demands commitment, shared understanding, and people-focused frameworks. In recognition of the social and technical underpinnings of EV, ESLatinA has brought together a multi-disciplinary team of academics, policymakers and civil society representatives to develop socio-technical solutions via a comprehensive programme of multidisciplinary research and action. Our aim is to bring about systemic change for EV alleviation, whilst simultaneously enhancing energy system resilience, and fostering energy solidarity, as to maximise social welfare and equitable development. This will be achieved through wide ranging research and outputs, including bespoke local and national-level household surveys, generating in-depth qualitative data from participatory workshops, and producing innovative proposals for governance and legal frameworks. We will also establish national monitoring Observatories and a pan-Latin American network, and undertake national-scale energy systems vulnerability mapping and local-level assessment modelling. In culmination, we will produce cross-cutting knowledge based capacity-building and socio-technical solutions, including a diagnosis toolkit, energy literacy workshops, community exhibits, and bespoke National and Local Action Plans; all this from the inclusive perspective of energy solidarity, which is anchored on energy justice.

Nitrogen compounds are essential for life. They are needed to make many biological compounds including proteins, amino acids, DNA and ATP (the 'fuel source' of cells), without which no living organism could survive. Nitrogen is particularly important because it often limits food production, while high levels of N compounds in the environment lead to serious pollution problems. By supplying N fertilizers, farmers greatly improve their yields. This has been essential to feed the growing world population over the last century, with N fertilizers estimated to sustain ~3.5 billion people, almost half of humanity. While the increased manufacture and mobilization of reactive N sources can be seen as a great feat of 'geoengineering', there have been many unintended consequences. A growing human population needs more food, so more fertilizers, especially as we now eat more animal products per person. The result is a complex web of pollution issues, threatening water, air and soil quality, altering climate balance and impacting on ecosystems and human health. In addition to the loss of N from farms, other sources cannot be forgotten. These include air emissions from burning, and losses to water from sewage systems. Overall, human alteration of the global N cycle makes for a multi-issue problem that ranks alongside climate change as one of the great challenges of the 21st century. The European Nitrogen Assessment has estimated that N pollution alone causes 70-320 billion Euro per year of damage across the EU (Nature, 14 April 2011,472,159). Given the wide diversity of nitrogen loss pathways into the environment, there are many potential solutions. In a recent report 'Our Nutrient World' led by CEH for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP, launched Feb 2013), 10 key actions were identified which would contribute to better nutrient management, simultaneously helping to meet food security goals while reducing the pollution of air, land and water, with multiple benefits for ecosystems, climate and human health. However, 'Our Nutrient World' also identified that there is currently no global international agreement that links the many benefits and threats of nitrogen. As a result, there is also no coordinated scientific assessment and support process to quantify and demonstrate these linkages. This gap is now being addressed by the International Opportunities Fund (IOF) of the NERC through its support for a new endeavour "Pump priming to towards the International Nitrogen Management System" - or 'INMSpp' for short. The central idea is that a scientific support system is needed that can provide the evidence needed to show how joined-up management of the global nitrogen cycle will deliver multiple benefits, and to be able to evaluate options that policy makers may wish to consider. Already there is a developing ambition for INMS as reflected by the invitation from the UN Global Environment Facility (GEF) for the NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH) to work with UNEP to develop a concept to establish a future INMS approach. Ultimately this would be a major endeavour, linking indicators, models and datasets to allow evaluation of possible international agreements. The INMS pump priming project provides a key step towards this eventual goal. As one of the key challenges to establish model chains from source to impact to mitigation and adaptation the INMSpp project has taken on the task of working out how integrated global modelling of the nitrogen cycle should be developed. The project will bring together a global consortium to examine how models can be joined up to demonstrate the net benefits of better nitrogen management. This will be a key resource as the INMS approach is developed. The outcome is the prospect to show how linking up different international environmental agreements can build common ground, simultaneously supporting food and energy security and a cleaner environment.