Goal 15

Living Deltas

The Living Deltas Research Hub is funded for five years (2019-2024) and operates across four delta systems – Red River, Mekong deltas in Vietnam; the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna system in Bangladesh and India. We call these socio-ecological systems. The Living Deltas Hub’s AIM is to tackle the problem of delta degradation in the face of multiple threats (sea level rise and saline intrusion, mangrove degradation and loss of coastal buffering, climate change, population rise, land use changes, saline intrusion and communities health and well-being, unsustainable engineering interventions: damming, sand mining etc.). GCRF also aims at helping to delta countries to better achieve their UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Voluntary National Review agendas. The Hub aims to achieve its objectives via a process of CAPACITY-BUILDING though EQUITABLE PARTNERSHIP – only by doing this will the Hub have legacy beyond its five-year funding period. As such, this is an extremely ambitious research program – the most ambitious that the UK Research Councils have done up to now. The Hub is truly interdisciplinary and brings together the natural and physical sciences, the social sciences and the arts & humanities on an equal basis to seek new solutions (building on the research already carried out in the delta countries) to complex, intertwined issues through capacity-building and knowledge co-production towards BETTER DELTA FUTURES.

Keywords: Delta, Sustainability, Resilience, equitable livelihoods, socio-ecological systems

(more…)
By , ago

Cities by Women: Embedding Climate Change Resilience in Himalayan Cities

The research focuses on gender mainstreaming in the nexus of climate change, land use, and informal livelihoods in Himalayan cities. Expected activities include:
1) survey and mapping to examine how women in informal settlements use the urban spaces for their livelihoods and what the impacts of climate change on their daily activities are;
2) stakeholder workshop and networking to address and inform the urban policy about women’s role in building climate change resilience in Himalayan cities.

Keywords Gender, Climate change, Informal livelihood, Urban space, Urban planning

(more…)
By , ago

Low Business Opportunities in Forestry Project

This project is designed to train university lecturers, NGOs, and government officials from ASEAN member states on identifying the low-carbon business development opportunities created by forestry climate change project. Trainers were from Japan, ASEAN, and AIT. Training was held in Siem Reap in 16 – 23 March 2019 (3 days for fieldwork and 5 days for in-class lectures), for which more than 60 people attended. Trainers were from Asian Institute of Technologies, Japanese Universities, local universities in Cambodia, Wildlife Conservation Society, World Wildlife Fund for Nature, and more from ASEAN member states.

Keywords REDD+, low carbon business, forestry, carbon credits

(more…)
By , ago

Detection of Land Use Change

This is project is a research collaboration project between Lund University in NRM of SERD, AIT in Thailand and the Royal University of Agriculture. Named FRAWASA, this project is aimed at identifying land cover change in Cambodia, assessing land availability for forest restoration and climate-smart agriculture. It suggests policy interventions for reducing carbon emissions from deforestation and for increasing carbon stocks through forest restoration and smart agriculture.

Keywords REDD+, carbon emissions, carbon sequestration, carbon removals, emission reductions, forest restoration, climate smart agriculture

(more…)
By , ago

Understanding Barriers and Working Pathways to Women’s Political Participation In Myanmar

The aim of the project is to assess the extent and forms of women’s participation in the political sphere in Myanmar, and explore barriers and enabling factors. We define participation beyond just actions that influence or support governments to taking part in collective decision-making in a broad sense. Previous research has demonstrated low levels of women’s representation in national, subnational, and community governance, and explored the social and cultural norms that bar women from taking leadership roles.1 This research will extend these insights to analyze the pathways to participation across multiple levels of governance: (1) National parliament, political parties, and social movements; (2) State/Division parliaments, government offices; and (3) District, township, and village groups. Using the concept of pathways will allow us to utilize and study women’s personal path to political power, to understand what can undermine at any point upward mobility in the political system and what can facilitate or provide entry points or further engagement at different moments in a woman’s life.

Keywords Gender, Political Participation, Equality, Myanmar

(more…)
By , ago

Trade Hub

Thousands of species are threatened globally with extinction, there has been a swift decline in biodiversity and ecosystem resilience and people are being kept in poverty as trade in wildlife and agricultural commodities from low and middle-income countries has rapidly increased. The Trade Hub includes economists, trade modellers, political scientists, ecologists, development scientists, large companies, UN bodies and NGOs who will work together across supply chains to influence trade related policy and practice. It will also produce research to help ensure that trade becomes a driver of positive change in the world, with biodiversity loss halted and people permanently lifted out of poverty. The Hub will select trades that are already having, of have the potential to have, a major impact on biodiversity, as well as those that are important for local livelihoods:

  • bamboo and rattan
  • live animals
  • skins of animals
  • wild meatocoa
  • coffee
  • palm oil
  • rubber
  • soy beans
  • sugar

Emerging trades, for example in crops such as bush mango and the African cherry, will also be studied as examples of wild-sourced species that are being gradually domesticated into agricultural systems. These various trades will be studied within eight countries, chosen for being in different stages of economic development as well as producing a wide range of wildlife and agricultural products: Brazil, China, Cameroon, Gabon, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, and Indonesia. The project will study how different systems of trade have affected biodiversity from a biophysical, social, political and economic point of view, and trace the impact of the supply chain all the way from supplier to consumer countries via trading companies. As well as feeding into public policy advice, this research will also help companies understand their products’ true environmental impact all the way back to the raw materials.

Keywords Trade, Brexit, Sustainability, Biodiversity, Equitable Growth

(more…)
By , ago

Evidenced Based analysis of Flood Risk Management and Social Vulnerability – A System Approach in Sakon Nakhon Province, Thailand

The project aims to overview the status, risks and trends of the flood disasters in the Mueang District as a case to develop a system-based multi-disciplinary framework for local level risk assessment and recommend necessary future actions for decision-makers. The specific objectives of the project are; 1. To identify critical interdependent factors influencing vulnerability of the flood hazards. 2. To improve flood risk management by better understanding system behavior. 3. To understand a system of flood risk interventions across multi-sector levels and scales. 4. Identify the gaps and challenges and take actions on Risk Governance Mechanism at local level to improve and support long-term flood risk management. 5. To develop system based multi-stakeholder risk assessment tool for resilience index and recommend a community-based resilience framework for the flood prone community.

Keywords: System Approach, SDG, Social Vulnerability, Natural Disasters

(more…)
By , ago