The Research programme is both innovative and unique because it is founded on long-term, multi-disciplinary research collaboration between the three proposing institutions, providing:

1. A culture of extensive publications in refereed scientific journals that underpins the partners’ international research profiles and reputations.
2. A legacy of well-instrumented, contrasting field research sites (Figure 1) that provide excellent ‘reference’ (low energy – Frome; high energy - Tagliamento) and ‘impacted’ (hydropower – Adige; agriculture – Spree; urban, estuarine – Thames) field observatories across humid temperate (Frome, Spree, Thames) and alpine-mediterranean (Adige, Tagliamento) environments, (plus other environments offered by associates partners) within which DCs can develop their research.
3. Contacts with practitioners amongst associate partners, who can provide work experience / placement opportunities, practical inputs to training, and a springboard for testing the application of research findings.