Central and Southern Africa (C&SA) exemplifies the issues that FCFA aims to address: a complex mix of remote and regional climate drivers that challenge conventional climate model simulations, high levels of poorly simulated multi-year climate variability, an extremely low level of investment in climate science relative even to other parts of Africa but particularly West Africa; high physical and socio-economic exposure to climate that projections indicate may become drier and more variable in the future; and low adaptive capacity resulting in decision-making and medium-term planning that is inhibited by significant political, institutional and economic barriers. Meanwhile economic growth and significant infrastructure planning is taking place within C&SA in the absence of adequate climate information. Deficient understanding of many key climate features in C&SA is one barrier to the integration of climate information into decision-making. UMFULA will provide a step-change in climate science in C&SA. Our objectives include: (i) fundamental research into key climate processes over C&SA and how these are dealt with in models; (ii) a process-based evaluation to determine how models invoke change and whether that change is credible; (iii) production of novel climate products (Work Packages WP1-2) encompassing convection permitting and very high resolution (c4 km) ocean-atmosphere coupled simulations that will reveal processes of high impact events and as yet unexplored complexities of the climate change signal. We will also focus on neglected but critical elements of the circulation such as the links between C&SA and the role of local features including the Angolan Low, Botswana anticyclone, Angola/Benguela Frontal Zone, and the Seychelles-Chagos thermocline ridge. Based on this research and through co-production with stakeholders we will generate improved and streamlined climate information for decision-makers (WP3). We will use a deliberative and participatory methodology to test findings from FCFA pillars 1 and 2 with stakeholders based on deep engagement in two contrasting case studies: the Rufiji river basin in Tanzania, and sub-national decision-making in Malawi. They are carefully selected as exemplars of multi-sector, multi-stakeholder, and multi-scale decision situations which can be compared for transferable lessons on the effective use of climate services. In-depth understanding of decision-making contexts, including political economy, theories of institutional change, and individual motivation from behavioural sciences will inform how to tailor and target climate projections for most effective use (WP4). The case study areas (WP5-6) will test these findings through a co-produced framework of C&SA-appropriate decision-making under climate uncertainty to identify robust climate services-informed intervention pathways (portfolios of policies and investments that could work well over a broad range of climatic and socio-economic futures). Our Capstone Work Package (WP7), and major outcome, will be the synthesis of best decision-making models and appraisal methods that are transferable in the African context and enable effective use of climate information in medium-term decision-making. The seven UMFULA Work Packages cut across the three FCFA pillars to ensure maximum complementarity and integration. We are a consortium with world-leading expertise in climate science, decision science and adaptation research and practice, together with stakeholder networks and strong, long-standing relationships in C&SA. We comprise 5 UK and 13 African institutions.

35% of Africa, 40% of the sub-Saharan Africa land surface and almost 37% of the member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) is underlain by weathered and fractured 'basement complex' bedrock which contains groundwater within its weathered mantle (most significant under the 'African erosion surface') and to a lesser extent within rock fractures (most significant under the 'post-African erosion surface'). Achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in Africa (MDG Target 7.C: to halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation) is therefore fundamentally reliant on the long-term sustainability of groundwater abstractions from these crystalline basement complex aquifers (BCAs). The incentive for our proposal is a recent reconnaissance analysis of the sustainability of groundwater resources of the BCAs in Malawi (the 'Malawi analysis' of Robins et al 2013). The reconnaissance method for estimating groundwater resource limitation compares estimates of groundwater throughflow and storage depletion with actual abstractions at a coarse scale (100s km2). The analysis raises concern that groundwater abstractions exceed long-term recharge in 4 of the 15 'water resource areas' (WRAs) of Malawi, in parts of both the 'weathered' and 'fractured' BCA environments. This controversial conclusion contrasts with the long and widely held view that resource development from BCAs is limited by low transmissivity, hence through low yield of wells, compounded by widespread technological failure of the well-points themselves. Also, it provides a cautionary perspective on a continent-wide assessment of groundwater 'volumes in place' in Africa by MacDonald et al (2012) who have estimated the BCA resource at 500,000 m3/km2 on the basis of published geological maps and estimates of hydrogeological parameters. Availability and sustainability of the groundwater resource, however, fundamentally require ground-truth measurements and process-based analyses (Edmunds 2012). Cumulative groundwater abstraction has greatly increased across much of SSA over the past 30+ years following numerous rural water development and drought relief programmes. Therefore the Malawi experience could be indicative of groundwater resources sustainability in BCAs more widely throughout SSA. If the Malawi analysis is correct, one important implication is that additional, un-recoverable well-point failure will be expected in the affected regions. This expectation forms the basis for the test we will apply to the Malawi analysis. This proposal therefore addresses the concern that the Malawi experience is indicative for groundwater in BCAs throughout SSA. The principal objective is to test the Malawi analysis, by examining the implications for well-point failure using independent data on well-point occurrence and status (available through WaterAid and the Malawi Ministry of Water Development and Irrigation). Concurrently, we will explore the links between well-point failure, health, poverty and gender issues where resource limitation to sustainability of groundwater well-points has been proposed, using census and aggregated heath data. We will carry out field investigations to refine the analysis of groundwater resource limitation over a smaller area and to develop a preliminary analysis for a selected region in southern Zimbabwe. We will develop a methodology for application to water-use policy and local resource/well-point monitoring. We will stimulate awareness and adoption of the methodologies at a regional Workshop. Hence we will support national mitigation measures, and local management of groundwater use. The project will lead to new estimates of resource limitation in Zimbabwe, new collaborations, and form the basis for wider investigation of resource-limitation across SSA basement complex regions.