Belmont Forum-G8 Initiative Collaborative Research: Coastal Vulnerability: Global learning for local solutions: Reducing vulnerability of marine-dependent coastal communities

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This award provides support to U.S. researchers participating in a project competitively selected by a 13-country initiative on global change research through the Belmont Forum and the G8 countries Heads of Research Councils. The Belmont Forum is a high level group of the world's major and emerging funders of global environmental change research and international science councils. It aims to accelerate delivery of the international environmental research most urgently needed to remove critical barriers to sustainability by aligning and mobilizing international resources. The G8 Heads of Research Councils developed a funding framework to support multilateral research projects that address global challenges in ways that are beyond the capacity of national or bilateral activities. Each partner country provides funding for their researchers within a consortium to alleviate the need for funds to cross international borders. This approach facilitates effective leveraging of national resources to support excellent research on topics of global relevance best tackled through a multinational approach, recognizing that global challenges need global solutions.Working together in an inaugural call of the International Opportunities Fund, the Belmont Forum and G8HORCs have provided support for research projects that seek to deliver knowledge needed for action to mitigate and adapt to detrimental environmental change and extreme hazardous events that relate to either Freshwater Security or Coastal Vulnerability. This award provides support for the U.S. researchers to cooperate in consortia that consist of partners from at least three of the participating countries and that bring together natural scientists, social scientists and research users (e.g., policy makers, regulators, NGOs, communities and industry). This award supports research activities that will work to improve community adaptation efforts by characterizing, assessing, and predicting changes in coastal-marine food web resources through the provision and sharing of knowledge across regions experiencing rapidly changing climate and social tensions. Many coastal communities rely on marine resources for livelihoods and food security. Increasing populations and associated socio-ecological changes put pressure on these resources through increased pollution, development, climate changes and habitat degradation. This project will (1) build regional skill-sets to reduce coastal vulnerability by evaluating and characterizing probable changes; (2) create predictive systems to inform decision makers about expected consequences of coastal changes; (3) deliver alternative options for adaptation and transformations for coastal communities; and (4) define long-term implications of selecting particular policy and management options in terms of economic, social, and environmental outcomes. This work will focus on southern hemisphere hotspots of change, including southern Africa, southern and western Australia, Mozambique channel, southern India, and Brazil. This project will contribute to understanding the vulnerability of coastal biological and human systems to develop sustainable adaptation pathways for coastal communities and develop effective mechanisms and expertise to translate evidence-based results into management strategies.