Sustainable Use of Natural Resources to Improve Human Health and Support Economic Development-SUNRISE

Supporting global sustainable development

Increasing environmental degradation, due to global population growth and climate change among other causes, was a major consideration in the formulation of the United Nations UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

SUNRISE supports the realisation of the SDGs by improving livelihoods and wellbeing through research to:

• reduce environmental risk
• improve environmental quality
• improve reliability of the supply of food, water and other natural resources

SUNRISE will deliver its objectives through:

• Developing hydro-climate services for water management

This aims to address the challenge of understanding and predicting water dynamics in areas of incomplete and spatially diverse data, and so improve decision-making. (Lead  scientist: Harry Dixon)

• Restoring and remediation of degraded resources

This will fill a knowledge gap by attributing the main causes of degradation of air quality, water and soil systems and by determining the key factors that affect both rate and  stability of recovery. (Lead scientist: Niall McNamara)

• Managing land to ensure environmental sustainability

This will investigate the factors limiting productivity and/or compromising the resilience of smallholder farming systems in and investigate new interventions to enable the local  development of systems that are resilient to environmental change. (Lead scientist: Stephen Cavers)

SUNRISE will directly contribute to the following SDGs by providing new understanding to inform and improve sustainable environmental management, at relevant scales in parts of Asia (including China, India, Indonesia and Malaysia) and parts of sub-Saharan Africa (including Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania and Malawi).

• SDG1: No poverty
• SDG2: Zero hunger
• SDG3: Good health and well-being
• SDG6: Clean water and sanitation
• SDG7: Affordable and clean energy
• SDG11: Sustainable cities and communities
• SDG13: Climate Action
• SDG15: Life on land

Collaborators:

Natural Environment Research Council- Centre for Ecology and Hydrology - Prof Laurence Carvalho