India and The Netherlands both face increasing flood and drought risks due to urbanization and climate change, while current water disaster management strategies are inadequate. This project aims to develop the knowledge and tools to mitigate future water disasters through an integrated understanding and multi-scale modeling of droughts and floods. Remote sensing, artificial intelligence, and machine learning are used to improve predictions. Socio-economic impacts will be assessed, adaptation measures co-created with stakeholder input, and guidelines provided to decision-makers. Study sites will demonstrate new approaches to disaster management and support acceleration and replication through knowledge sharing and peer learning.

Contemporary and converging trends, crises and risks, including natural disasters, economic crises, social inequality and climate and demographic change, demand new approaches in managing and using environmental resources. India is a country which is rapidly growing into urban agglomerations showing infrastructure deficits and adaptation gaps in response to current and future climatic, societal and economic change. While key drivers are well understood and technological solutions exist, this will be insufficient to deliver the transformative changes needed to pro-actively deal with and respond to these challenges. Water as a basic necessity for life is both an agent and a catalyst of positive change if managed in a context sensitive way. Therefore, to facilitate long-term sustainability and resilience of urban water systems, a holistic, integrative, fit-for-purpose and socio-ecological approach is required in governance, land-use planning, technology, infrastructure design and societal behaviours. These are dimensions that in combination determine ‘equilibrium’ solutions, sensitive to socio-economic, environmental, technical, and procedural conditions that will continue to change in the future. By synergistically connecting 4 realms for the delivery of change, the programme will develop an integrative and applicable water sensitive design framework for liveable fast growing secondary cities in India.

A4Life will quantify the potential of sand rivers in Sub-Saharan Africa to provide reliable water for farmer-led irrigation development (SDG 2), while recognizing the importance of preserving the natural ecosystems along sand rivers (SDG 6). Given the challenges associated with climate as well as socio-economic change, establishing this potential is urgent. These findings can help government agencies and development banks make evidence-based decisions about critical investments to support resource-poor households in African drylands. At least 1 million households might benefit and strengthen their resilience (SDG 13). A4Life thus paves ways for inclusive and sustainable socio-economic development in fragile African landscapes.

CONNEXION identifies and addresses critical connections between water management and human health in the Inkomati-Usuthu water management area (South Africa). We combine disease and water-energy-food (WEF) interaction models to better understand these connections. We visualise results in a dashboard for decision making, supporting WEF and health managers in their policy and daily practice. Our consortium includes a broad team of researchers and practitioners in WEF, nutrition, and infectious diseases, who will work together with various local stakeholders to co-create potential scenarios and recommendations. CONNEXION will contribute to improved resilience, community livelihoods, health, and wellbeing in the research area and beyond.

Strategic delta planning is a relatively novel approach that is increasingly used to support long-term integrated and adaptive management of urbanizing deltas, for instance in the Netherlands, Vietnam and Bangladesh. Although strategic delta planning is generally initiated as a concerted effort during a limited period of years, it does not take place in a vacuum. Delta planning needs to fit within a longer history of past planning efforts, societal structures and existing policy environments if it wants to secure a successful implementation throughout its longer-term planning horizon. Therefore, this project looks at the larger picture to ensure a better connection between strategic delta planning activities and their societal and technological environment. Through a combination of research, policy engagement and capacity building, it aims to support better connections between science, policy-makers and societal stakeholders, fostering a joint learning environment that supports adaptive implementation of strategic decisions on the future of urbanizing deltas. A better understanding of the nature and specifics of strategic delta planning processes is built, studying three crucial elements that together heavily influence the fit of delta planning within society: the formation and change over time of various stakeholder coalitions; the role of technological advances and innovative solutions in longer-term delta management processes; and the availability of tools and approaches that support participatory processes to enable better connections between delta planners and their broader environment. Strong links with practice are forged to ensure the empirical grounding of research, uptake of results and contributions to policy practice. The project therefore is linked to real-world strategic delta planning processes in the Netherlands, Bangladesh and Vietnam. These linkages are secured through the involvement in these processes of the various members of the project consortium. Furthermore, as delta planning requires the combination of delta-level coordination with national level planning and local level actions, the project looks also at specific locations within each of the countries. For this, work in the southwestern areas of Bangladesh and the Netherlands is foreseen, as well as in An Giang province in Vietnam. These areas are characterized by the prevalence of polders, sometimes introduced at one time as an innovative solution, which, with the ongoing pressures from urbanization, growth and climate change, demand new innovations in management and/or technology. Capacity building is embedded in the involvement of various stakeholders throughout the project activities, as well as through the international networks and educational platforms offered by the project partners.