River basins provide the livelihoods and means of support for millions of people world-wide. They draw on the river water (the 'blue' water) for drinking and washing, for domestic gardens, for irrigation, fishing and transport. Water in the soil ('green' water) provides further contribution to their livelihoods, through its support to vegetation, tree cover and biodiversity. These in turn form a source of other services such as food, medicinal plants and forest products. The physical setting of river basins has additional value to the populations living in river basins, providing for flood storage and waste disposal. River basin landscapes are an important basis for cultural identity. In common with many other ecosystems, river basins are now subject to increasing change. Many factors drive this change. Increasing populations put increasing pressure on the services provided by river basins, and economic growth exacerbates these pressures by increasing individual demand. Technological changes mean that people begin to utilise new services from river basins, such as water for industrial processes. Climate variability and climate change have significant impacts on river basin landscapes, through changes to river flows and soil moisture levels which radically change patterns of vegetation. Alternating drought and flood are constant features in many river basins but are perceived to be increasing in severity and frequency. This research will increase understanding of the interactions and linkages between people who live in river basins and the resources and services that they draw from the basin. It will focus on three key aspects: *understanding the water, land and biodiversity resources of river basins, with a particular emphasis on how these may be changing over the long-term in response to different drivers and pressures, *investigating how people in river basins draw on the available natural and institutional resources to fashion mechanisms for access and management through different forms of water governance, *exploring the outcomes of water governance, both for people through their livelihoods and wellbeing, and for ecosystems. Throughout the research, the emphasis will be on identifying and understanding the processes of change and on studying new ways in which people and ecosystems can increase resilience and adapt to change. In particular it will aim to increase understanding of how decision-makers can link ecosystem services in river basins to poverty alleviation and sustainable growth. The research will be located in two important river basins in sub-Saharan Africa, the Komadugu-Yobe Basin in NE Nigeria and the Great Ruaha Basin in SW Tanzania. These basins have many similarities and some significant differences. Of particular relevance to this research is the fact that they both contain large and important wetlands, which thus provide the opportunity to study the linkages between the water cycle and other ecosystem services of the wetlands. Both basins are important geographic and political features of their respective contexts, and both have been subject to intensive study and development over past decades, meaning that there is a wealth of long-term data on which to build. The first phase of the programme is to build a research partnership between universities and government agencies with responsibility for water management in the two locations. During this phase these institutions will work together to identity the main research issues and to develop appropriate research approaches and methodologies which will yield rigorous and coherent findings.The long-term goal of the programme is to support the livelihoods and increase the well-being of the people, by deepening the knowledge base of the processes through which they draw on the river basin and its linked ecosystems.

Peace and prosperity underpin the success of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): from reducing extreme poverty and violent conflicts to ensuring peaceful and inclusive societies. But there are now more conflicts worldwide than at any time in the past 20 years, spurring massive displacement of millions of people, intensifying livelihood struggles in places such as the Sahel, and reducing opportunities for social cohesion and economic development. Many conflicts are a result of extreme poverty, especially in the Lake Chad region where over 30 million people are in poverty and almost every family is threatened by livelihood insecurity. Without concerted, collaborative action to promote peace and prosperity across the world, violence could drive 100 million people into poverty by 2030. This research is a direct response to this concern. Working in three fragile and conflict-affected Lake Chad territories in Chad, Niger and Nigeria, it will research and co-create locally valid, locally owned and locally sustained peace and prosperity pathways that will serve as decision-support tools to foster sustainable and inclusive development planning in fragile environments. The pursuit of peace and prosperity can involve interconnected social, economic, ecological and governance challenges that entangle competing interests, norms, values, priorities and memories of historical past. As such, research on peace and prosperity pathways must incorporate a diversity of perspectives, worldviews and knowledge systems. Working with partners across the Lake Chad region (which include the University of Differ, University of N'Djamena, University of Maiduguri, and the Lake Chad Basin Commission), the research will (collaboratively) create a system of interlinked research and learning spaces (in the form of Transboundary Citizens Learning Alliances) to reveal the foundations of citizens' preferences and strategies for both socio-economic development ('prosperity') and meaningful and non-violent interactions ('peace'). It will employ a range of interdisciplinary, multi-scale, mixed method approaches (including young citizens panels, participatory scenario-based forecasting and backcasting) underpinned by the principles of knowledge co-creation (such as orientation on societal perspectives, acknowledgement of complex contexts and set of actors, and evaluation on the basis of contextual adequacy with iterative feedback loops). The research brings together science and society in a reciprocally useful way to advance an innovative approach to knowledge co-creation and change-making. While it draws on pertinent research from relevant disciplines, such as conflict, peace, environment, development and ethnography, the focus on co-creation and use of peace-prosperity pathways to refocus development practice - notably in the Lake Chad region - represents a new innovation. The goal of achieving peace and prosperity in the Lake Chad region has enormous economic and political significance for the UK (e.g. continued violence in the region has the potential to trigger youth migration threats in the UK in the longer-term). The research will generate new knowledge, alliances and tools that will foster sustainable peace and prosperity in the region and beyond. New knowledge on the dimensions of, and pathways towards, peace-prosperity will enhance progress towards SDG 1 (poverty reduction) and 16 (peaceful and inclusive societies); all leading to improved lives and livelihood opportunities for citizens. Additional impact will include: development of new knowledge co-creation approaches that can be applied in fragile settings; as well as capacity building of a new generation of young academics in conflict, peace and development research.