Belmont Forum-G8 Collaborative Research: DELTAS: Catalyzing action towards sustainability of deltaic systems with an integrated modeling framework for risk assessment

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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 develop a versatile modeling framework that can be applied to evaluate the unique functioning, critical stressors, and vulnerability of the world?s deltas. Deltas are economically and environmentally important systems, sustaining a large portion of the world?s populations, economic activity, and ecosystems. These systems are deteriorating rapidly due to climate changes, catchment changes, and local exploitation and ecosystem degradation. This project will develop an evidence-based framework for global delta sustainability by (1) advancing delta sustainability science as critical coupled human-natural systems; (2) co-design, -develop, and -deliver an evidence-based sustainability framework for risk assessment and decision support; (3) build an international repository of integrated delta datasets; and (4) develop and implement a modeling and decision support framework in partnership with local stakeholders. Applicable from local to national levels, this framework will be applied to three case-studies in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna, Mekong, and Amazon deltas. This project will contribute toward effective regional delta management and governance by providing a mechanism to integrate social, economic, bio-physical, and ecosystem services components to assess delta vulnerability and guide sustainable management strategies and decisions across scales, in collaboration with experts and stakeholders.