Urban equality refers to the possibility of attaining an even distribution of access to resources, services and opportunities, as well as recognition of social diversity and inclusion in decisions that affects urban citizens' lives. Increasing rates of urban inequality since the 1990s affect directly prosperity and resilience outcomes in urban areas. Increasing rates of urban inequality hold back economic, social and political progress and can contribute to conflicts and extreme poverty. In the age of urbanisation, with more than half of the World's population living in urban areas, achieving urban equality is a major global challenge. Three quarters of the World's urban areas are more unequal today than they were 20 years ago. Close to 1 billion people worldwide live in informal settlements, deprived of basic services and livelihood opportunities. The challenge of urban inequality has inspired a new global discourse on the future of cities and urban areas. The Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11, the 'urban' goal, emphasise the need to deliver inclusive cities. The New Urban Agenda (NUA) adopted by national governments in Quito, October 2016, asks for urban policies for a city that leave 'no one behind'. The project 'Knowledge in Action for Urban Equality' (henceforth KNOW) seeks to develop research capacities in developing countries and in UK institutions that deliver ODA research, to deliver on the SDG11 and the NUA. KNOW focuses on the major knowledge gap in global policy agendas: delivering urban equality for inclusive cities of opportunities for all. The work programme focuses on three key challenges: achieving prosperity; building resilience to disasters and a changing climate; and addressing the persistent problem of extreme poverty. The work programme is divided in six work packages. Three work packages focus on learning-by-doing, that is, doing research as a means to build capacity. Work Package 1 will deliver city-relevant research in several countries including Perú, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Tanzania, Uganda, Sierra Leona, India, and Sri Lanka. In each case, KNOW will support the formation of a network of overseas and local academics, and stakeholders who will work together to identify the specific challenges associated with urban inequality that emerge in each city. Work Package 2 will use different case-based experiences to develop a comparative programme of research across cities, exploring the challenges of prosperity, resilience, and extreme poverty. Work Package 3 will focus on develop an 'Ethics of Practice' for urban research, within the framework of the Global Challenges Research Fund. Three work packages will focus on delivering capacities to maximise the impact of research. Work Package 4 will focus on how to translate research into practice, working with key policy makers, intermediaries, and activists to explore the development of urban policy following the programme of research in each city. Work Package 5 will focus on how to maximise the impact of research in education, particularly focusing on the education of planners in the Global South. Finally, Work Package 6 will examine the UK-based capacities to deliver ODA-research for urban equality, seeking to strength current areas of work and develop a new transdisciplinary field of research practice. KNOW will be coordinated by the Bartlett Development Planning Unit, a recognised institution with a track record of 60+ years of applied research to deliver socially and environmentally just cities in the global south. KNOW also build on a consolidated network of partners in urban areas, capable to deliver an ambitions, international, and interdisciplinary urban research. These partners constitute the locus for a worldwide network of Urban Hubs that, strengthen by the experience in KNOW, will deliver a long-term agenda of research for urban equality.

The basic shape and branching structure of a tree can be distinctive and characteristic, yet there exists no consistent dataset quantifying how tree form varies across species and how it is related to other functional traits of a tree. Understanding the variation in structure and form of trees is important in order to link tree physiology to tree performance, scale fluxes of water and carbon within and among trees, and understand constraints on tree growth and mortality. These topics hold great importance in the field of ecosystem science, especially in light of current and future changes to climate. It is surprising, therefore, that tree structure and form are currently neglected areas of study. There are two primary reasons for this neglect: 1) it is difficult and time-consuming to quantify tree structure in-situ and 2) there is a lack of theory that explicitly links tree form parameters with physiological function. Recent developments in technology and theory now enable us to overcome these limitations. In this proposal we aim to use new ground-based 3D terrestrial laser scanning technologies (TLS) in combination with recently developed theoretical frameworks to measure and compare tree architecture. We focus on the tropics, since (i) they host the vast majority of broadleaf tree diversity and play a disproportionate role in global and regional carbon and water fluxes, and (ii) the high species diversity of tropical forests (typically 100-250 tree species per hectare) means we can sample a large number of species under almost identical climate and soil conditions, making it more likely to detect overall tendencies in tree form response to environment that are not dominated by the peculiarity of a particular species. Specifically, we will employ TLS to collect highly-detailed 3D structural information from mature rainforest trees spanning contrasting environments ranging from cloud forests to wet rainforests to dry savanna, and contrasting biogeographical histories from the cloud forests of the Andes through legume-dominated forests of Amazonia and Africa, through the dipterocarp-dominated tall forests of Borneo, to the ancient rainforest flora of Australia. All field sites are locations where we have already collected information of the leaf and wood traits of a number of tropical trees. We plan to achieve three goals: i) definition of quantitative classes of tree form using advanced imaging and computational techniques, ii) development of an understanding of the degree of covariance between tree form and tree leaf and wood functional traits, and the degree of phylogenetic constraint and plasticity in tree form, iii) testing and refinement of metabolic-scaling based approaches to scaling fluxes and productivity of tropical tree communities. Over the course of three years our team will: 1) Create a database of branch- and canopy-level trait data collected from our field campaigns. 2) Use variation in branching architecture and canopy structure traits to define a suite of branching and canopy traits that allow for the classification of tree form. 3) Assess the scaling of tree form traits within trees and integrate the scaling of tree-form into a mechanistic plant scaling framework. 4) Explore the link between tree-form traits and leaf and wood traits to determine a whole-tree integrated economics spectrum. In doing so, we hope to acquire a mechanistic understanding of the relationship between tree form, function, phylogeny and environment over a large spatial scale. We expect to find that behind the dazzling variety of shapes and forms found in trees hides a remarkably similar architecture based on fundamental, shared principles.

Meltwater from glaciers in the Peruvian Andes provides an important and reliable water supply for local and downstream communities for domestic purposes, hydropower, subsistence and commercial agriculture, and industry; and to support rare, high-elevation wetlands and wider ecosystem functioning. However, this long-term, reliable water supply is threatened by increasing temperatures and changing precipitation patterns in the mountainous areas, resulting in shrinking of glaciers and changes in the amount and seasonality of meltwater runoff. A warming climate is also associated with an increasing frequency of extreme hydrological events, such as floods and droughts. Coupled with the stresses of Peru's rapid urbanisation and economic development, these changes are expected to lead to significant water scarcity, with the potential to inhibit economic growth and degrade vulnerable ecosystems (and the services they provide), which in turn will increase social vulnerability, adversely affect the equitable sharing of resources, increase social conflicts, and destabilise Peruvian societies (from local communities to the large coastal urban centres). Peru GROWS aims to increase the resilience of Peruvian communities and ecosystems to hydrological changes arising from shrinking glaciers in the Andes. Working in the Rio Santa catchment - the most glacierised catchment of Peru - we will map the current socio-ecological system to identify where, and how, different communities and ecosystems are exposed to risks from water availability. We will then integrate field measurements and remote-sensing data into physically-based glacier and hydrological models, to simulate the past, present, and possible future changes (to the end of the twenty-first century) to the climate, the glaciers, and to river flows (including amounts, seasonality, and inter-annual variability). In close partnership with local stakeholders, we will exploit this new knowledge to explore the direct and indirect impacts of projected change in glacier behaviour on different communities in the catchment, with a focus on food security, aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, and energy production. We will provide information on the current state of the water balance and hotspots of potential water scarcity/trade-offs that can be easily understood by key stakeholders and will provide the basis for adaptation planning at local and regional level. Key stakeholders and end-users have been closely involved in the design of Peru GROWS and will co-deliver the research. Two key NGOs, with a long history of work in this region (CARE and the Mountain Institute) as well as social scientists at the National Glacier and Mountainous Ecosystems Research Institute and the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru, will act as an interface with the local stakeholders, especially vulnerable rural communities. Together, they will have a key role in co-designing appropriate adaptation strategies for water resources management and agriculture that will create lasting positive impact. With this, we lay a firm foundation from which multiple impacts can emerge during and after the project.

Andean countries face major challenges in meeting demand for water among different sectors, while making water available for low-income groups and conservation needs. In Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and Bolivia, the recognition, management and valuation of the watershed services that support ecosystems and people has been weak. Yet, assuring the supply of water for these demands by improving watershed management has become increasingly important, especially in the context of climate variability and the growth of agribusiness and mining. Payment for Environmental Services (PES) schemes have become a popular policy strategy for assuring the supply of water in Andean countries. They are often supported because they enable low-income communities living in upstream areas to increase their incomes by 'selling' healthy watershed services to downstream users, such as water utilities and industries. For example, in Ecuador, water utilities pay campesinos [peasant smallholders] with land near their drinking water sources to not use fertilizer or pesticide, or to leave their land fallow, so as not to pollute rivers. PES schemes are based on important assumptions about the behaviour of ecosystems and people, and their interactions. For example, it is widely thought that preventing deforestation upstream will protect water flows downstream, and many PES schemes are based on this relationship. However, this does not apply to all conditions, as sometimes deforestation can increase water flow. A further problem in Andean countries is that little is known about their native ecosystems, and there is very little data available to improve our understanding of them. These assumptions about the relationships between ecological processes and human activity are also often over-simplified. This type of approach is problematic because it pays little attention to wider political and economic factors that shape resource use at the local level. This often results in low-income people being held responsible for environmental degradation, and policies that are based on these inaccurate understandings (such as planting trees in headwaters in the high Andes) can damage ecosystems and jeopardise poor people's livelihoods. More importantly, PES schemes fail to consider the rules and institutions that campesino and indigenous groups already have in place to manage their water sources and environments. These comprise local knowledge, forms of community organisation, customs and values, that these groups use in their everyday lives. These existing institutions and practices cannot simply be erased, and so it is important to consider them when designing PES initiatives, rather than looking to override them. In order to analyse these key assumptions about watershed services in Andean and Amazonian catchments, and to be able to assess the appropriateness of PES schemes for places inhabited by low-income campesino and indigenous peoples, the key research question for this project is: How are the ecological and social dynamics of watershed services in Andean and Amazonian catchments understood and managed by different actors (scientists, policymakers, communities)? By asking this question, we seek to better understand how watershed processes function in landscapes that are shaped by both ecological and social dynamics; to get insights into the ways in which understandings of watershed processes - both scientific and local - influence traditional management and PES schemes; and to analyse how these perspectives and practices could contribute to equitable watershed management in Andean countries.

Montane forests in the Andes and the South-eastern Brazilian Mountain Range host the highest plant biodiversity on Earth. Current rates of warming in the Andes are three times higher than elsewhere in S. America, and higher than average warming of 5-6oC is predicted by the end of this century. Hence, the (sub)tropical mountain ranges in Latin America form a high-priority area in which to study the response of tropical trees under future environmental change. Tropical forests also play a crucial role in the global carbon budget, accounting for more than half of terrestrial net primary production and storing around 40% of plant biomass. Uncertainty in the response of tropical forests to global warming is responsible for a large uncertainty in atmospheric CO2 concentrations under any given scenario of anthropogenic CO2 emissions. However, the current generation of Dynamic Global Vegetation and Earth System Models do not include a representation of montane forest functioning, which stems from a lack of empirical understanding, leading to a consideration of only lowland tropical forests in models. We intend to address this knowledge gap by initiating a Latin America-wide network of tropical montane forest sites to gather existing understanding in order to model the contribution of these forests to the regional and global carbon and water cycles, under current and future climate change. This will be achieved via a dedicated workshop at the Uni-Campinas, Brazil, hosted by PP-FAPESP Nagy, with the participation of empirical experts across the network together with DGVM and ESM modellers.