In the framework of the programme for the achievement of MDG (MIllenium Development Goals) for water supply, UNICEF is promoting manual drilling throughout Africa; with different activities: advocacy, mapping of suitable zones, technical training and institutional support. Manual drilling refers to those techniques of drilling boreholes for groundwater exploitation using human or animal power (not mechanized equipment). These techniques are well known in countries with large alluvial deposits (India, Nepal, Bangladesh, etc). They are cheaper than mechanized boreholes, easy to implement as the equipment is locally done, able to provide clean water if correctly applied. But manual drilling is feasible only where suitable hydrogeological conditions are (shallow layers not to hard and groundwater not deeper than 25 m). Therefore a preliminary identification of suitable areas is necessary. The method for the identification of suitable zones at country levelalready aplied in 15 countries is based on the analysis of existing hydrogeological data. But an improved approach to have more reliable interpretation and more detailed analysis of the hydrogeological contex is required. The proposed research aims: - to contribute to define an improved methodology for the characterization of shallow geological conditions integrating other sources of indirect data - to produce more detailed suitability maps in the selected area, with the goal of supporting the implementation of manual drilling construction program. The research involves the collaboration of research centres and institutional partners in Italy, Senegal and Guinea. In particular these entities will participate: Univeristy of Milano Bicocca (Italy) University CHeick Anta Diop in Dakar (Senegal) UNICEF Senegal country office UNICEF GUinea country office SNAPE (National Water Authority) Guinea School of MInes Boke' - Guinea)

Understanding the short- and long-term mechanical behaviour of the lower crust is of fundamental importance when trying to understand the earthquake cycle and related hazard along active fault zones. In some regions some 20% of intracontinental earthquakes of magnitude > 5 nucleates in the lower crust at depth of 30-40 km. For example, a significant proportion of seismicity in the Himalaya, as well as aftershocks associated with the destructive 2001 Bhuj earthquake in India, nucleated in the granulitic lower crust of the Indian shield. Earthquakes in the continental interiors are often devastating and, over the past century, have killed significantly more people than earthquakes that occurred at plate boundaries. Thus, a thorough understanding of the earthquake cycle in intracontinental settings is essential. This requires knowledge of the mechanical behaviour and of the strength (by which Earth scientists commonly mean the maximum stress that rocks can sustain before deforming) of the lower crust. The most common conceptual model of the strength of the continental crust predicts a strong, seismogenic brittle upper crust (where the base of the seismogenic layer is typically considered to be at depth of 10-15 km), and a weak, viscous, aseismic lower crust. This model has been recently questioned by the finding that the lower crust can be seismic and, therefore, mechanically strong. The question arises, how thick is the seismogenic layer in the crust? Answering this question is crucial to determine the potential hazard caused by large earthquakes, which are also generally the deepest. Our limited knowledge of the mechanical behaviour of the lower crust is largely due to the lower crust itself being poorly accessible for direct geological observations, so that most of our knowledge derives from indirect geophysical measurements (like the distribution of earthquakes). There are only a few well-exposed large sections of exhumed continental lower crust in the world. One of these is located in the Lofoten islands (northern Norway), which were exhumed from their original deep crustal position during the opening of the North Atlantic Ocean. We propose an integrated, multi-disciplinary study of a network of brittle-viscous shear zones (i.e. zones of localized intense deformation of geological materials) from Lofoten, which records episodic rapid slip events (earthquakes) alternating with long-lasting aseismic creep. The study will link structural geology (analysis of geological faults and shear zones), petrology (analysis of the composition and textures of rocks), geochemistry (detailed chemical characterization of rocks and minerals) and experimental rock deformation (to reproduce in the lab under controlled conditions the deformation processes operative in the deep Earth's crust). This integrated dataset will provide a novel, clear picture of the mechanical behaviour of the continental lower crust during the earthquake cycle. Our direct geological and experimental observations will be tested against geophysical observations of currently active seismic deformation. The cumulative results of the projects will shed light on the currently poorly constrained mechanical behaviour of the lower crust during the earthquake cycle, and therefore on the sequence of inter-seismic slip (the period of slow accumulation of elastic deformation along a fault), co-seismic slip (the sudden rupture along a fault that is the earthquake) and post-seismic slip (the immediate period after an earthquake when the crust and the fault adjust to the modified state of crustal stress caused by an earthquake). This will greatly extend and complement existing efforts by the scientific community to understand and interpret the mechanical behaviour of rocks during the earthquake cycle recorded in the lower crust and the related hazard, and will provide key input for numerical models of continental dynamics.

A cornerstone of probability theory has been the establishment of the Law of Large Numbers and the Central Limit Theorem, both of them having impact beyond mathematical sciences. Roughly speaking, the sum of n independent, identically distributed variables with finite second moment is macroscopically of order n and has fluctuations of order n^{1/2}, obeying the Gaussian distribution. Underlying the Gaussian fluctuations is the linear dependence of the sum on the collection of the independent variables. However, most phenomena in nature exhibit a nonlinear dependence on the inherent randomness and the challenge is to (i) understand the nonlinear structure that propagates the randomness and (ii) reveal the universal features of this mechanism. Random walks in random media are widely used to model such phenomena in statistical physics. Two such instances that are receiving increasingly high attention are (A) stochastic growth models and (B) pinning models on defect lines. In case (A) one deals with a randomly growing interface. The non rigorous work of Kardar-Parisi-Zhang (KPZ) in the mid 80's set the framework of what is currently known as the KPZ universality class, by predicting that this class of models exhibits t^{1/3} fluctuations. More recent mathematical works have related, in special cases, the fluctuations of such systems to those coming from the theory of random matrices. Our goal is to build a rigorous mathematical theory that will explain the nature of these fluctuations by looking into the exactly solvable nature of these models, connect it to other mathematical fields and eventually perturb it in order to reveal universal phenomena. In case (B) one deals with a random walk in the vicinity of a defect line. The goal is to understand phase transitions related to localization and delocalization phenomena. Techniques related to large deviations and coarse graining have been used recently to study the phase diagrams of such phenomena. While progress has been made a number of important questions remain unresolved. We propose to provide a new path in the field through the construction of continuum limits of such models. In this way we aim to resolve the open questions and also make deep and novel connections to KPZ phenomena.

It was proposed by Kardar, Parisi and Zhang in the 1980s that a large class of randomly growing interfaces exhibit universal fluctuations described mathematically by a nonlinear stochastic partial differential equation, which is now known as the Kardar-Parisi-Zhang or KPZ equation. Models within this class exhibit three basic mechanisms: growth as a function of the steepness of the interface, a smoothing effect modelled by Laplacian and local randomness modelled by white noise. Examples of physical systems which fall in this class are percolation of liquid in porous media, growth of bacteria colonies, currents in one dimensional traffic or liquid systems, liquid crystals etc. Remarkably the fluctuations of such random interfaces are governed by exponents and distributions that differ from the predictions given by the classical central limit theorem. In dimension one they are, surprisingly, linked to laws emerging from random matrix theory, as this was first exhibited by the work of Baik-Deift-Johansson, followed by a flurry of activity which set the framework of "determinantal processes". New exciting developments have taken place in the more recent years, making the first important steps into universality beyond determinantal models. In dimension two the situation is much less developed as governing exponents and distributions are not known and even the meaning of the two dimensional KPZ is not set in place. The goal of the project is twofold: A. To penetrate deeper into the structure of one dimensional KPZ via setting a robust framework to study fluctuations of non determinantal systems, attacking pending conjectures on multipoint correlations and exploring new grounds into the universality and localisation phenomena. In doing so, novel links between probability, algebraic combinatorics, random matrix theory, integrable systems, number theory (automorphic forms) will be made. B. To make the first steps in dimension two by constructing, via suitable scaling limits of discrete systems, the object(s) that incarnate the two dimensional KPZ equation and extract their properties.

In the UK and globally, the slope failures of various sizes are crucially affecting the sustainable development of resilient cities, as its occurrence can significantly threaten the populations, infrastructures, public services, and environment. For example, the British Geological Survey has estimated that 10% of slopes in the UK are classified as at moderate to significant landslide risk, with more than 7% of the main transport networks located in these areas. These slopes may fail during prolonged periods of wet weather or more intensive short duration rainfall events. To date, the public awareness of slope failure risk is high, but our understanding of its fundamental failure mechanism and countermeasures are still very limited. This is mainly due to the difficulties in analysing the multiscale responses and characterize the spatial inhomogeneity of material properties of slopes. Laboratory and numerical investigations with well-developed empirical models can explain the general features of some specific slope failure events but cannot be applied universally. Some challenging issues need to be addressed, such as i) How to develop reliable mathematical models with multiscale modelling capability to analyse the progressive failure of slopes? ii) How to address the spatial variabilities and uncertainties of real slopes, e.g. material property, fractures, fluid permeability? iii) How to accurately estimate the spreading of landslide and its impact on infrastructures? The fundamental scientific issue of these challenges is the weakening mechanism of inhomogeneous slopes at different scales as it determines the slope responses under various geological and environmental conditions. The proposed research aims to explore the fundamental mechanism of progressive slope failure and its impacts on infrastructures via a multiscale and probabilistic modelling approach. It enables the large deformation of slopes to be conveniently analysed by FEM as boundary value problem (BVP), while the local fracturing, cracking, or discontinuous behaviours of soil to be evaluated in smaller discrete subdomains through granular mechanics by DEM. The boundary condition of DEM assembly is derived from the global deformation of FEM meshes. In the analysis, the soil/rock properties (e.g. elastic modulus, friction coefficient, strength, and fluid permeability) will be evaluated as random fields with spatial variabilities. The numerical modelling can effectively bridge the gap between the microscopic material properties and the overall macroscopic slope responses. In the numerical modelling, the contributions of material inhomogeneity and discontinuity to slope failure and subsequence landslide spreading can be effectively investigated. The internal fracture would occur naturally when the loading stress exceeds the particle bonding strength at the microscale, which avoids the use of some phenomenological constitutive laws in conventional continuum modelling. As a multidisciplinary research, this project will involve the subjects of geotechnical engineering, computational geotechnics, geology, statistics, soil/rock mechanics and granular mechanics. The proposed numerical model will benefit all researchers and stakeholders in land planning and management by providing efficient and reliable numerical modelling approaches. This will support the landslide risk evaluation, hazard mitigation and long-term land management, from which the environmental, social, and economic benefits can be achieved. As a result, the decision makers would have greater confidence in slope failure risk assessments on which they are basing their infrastructure investment considerations. Consequently, hazard warning systems, protections and land utilization regulations can be implemented, so that the loss of lives and properties can be minimized without investing in long-term, costly projects of ground stabilization.