The research has been structured into four interconnected work packages (WPs) – one for each secondary research question (WPs 1-3) and one for cross city/country comparative analysis and impact dissemination (WP 4) (Figure 2). WPs 1-3 each comprise two tasks – one for Dar and the other for Dhaka. While the WPs will focus on specific aspects of the research, data generated and analytical findings will feed into each other. Each WP will be headed jointly by a pair of leading local (Bangladeshi/Tanzanian) and UK experts, who will also contribute to other WPs, thus ensuring multi-disciplinarity. By drawing on the experience of (domestic) researchers will help us incorporate knowledge of local contexts. Our research methods not only build on our highly successful recent and on-going research in Bangladesh and Tanzania; we are also incorporating works of world-leading scholars on natural resource governance (e.g. Ostrom, 2007) and natural science (e.g. Lane et al., 2011), among others. We now briefly discuss the WPs:

UMTs are a planning-orientated representation of urban form and function. Their mapping provides a meso-scale biophysically logical framework which is shaped by both the natural and by the human landscapes of large urban areas. This makes them a suitable basis for the spatial analysis of cities and of their key structural components. The characterisation of urban areas using UMT classes allows for the identification of distinct green and blue UMTs – i.e. those which are principally associated with urban ecosystems. Land cover assessments within UMT classes also establish the nature and type of structures within other units (Pauleit and Duhme, 2000).

1. WP1 (Task 1.1 Dar; Task 1.2 Dhaka): Assessment of ecosystem services and disservices for low-income people from urban green and water structures. The 18 months long WP will start at the project inception and pull data from methods: 1 (the design principles), 2 (UMT and matrices of derived services), 3 (listing and ranking exercises) and 5 (all items). The goal is to answer the secondary question/ hypothesis one. The findings will feed into all other WPs.
2. WP2 (Task 2.1 Dar; Task 2.2 Dhaka): Mediating institutional structures – The 12 months long WP will start at month seven, and build on findings from WP1 and data from methods: 3 (all items) and 4 (all items). Apart from answering/ testing secondary question/ hypothesis two as the main goal, analytical findings will become an important input for WPs 3 and 4.
3. WP3 (Task 3.1 Dar; Task 3.2 Dhaka): The Progressive institutional arrangements – The nine months long WP will start at month 13, and build on findings of WPs 1 and 2 and data from method 6 (all items). The goal is to answer/ test secondary question/ hypothesis three.
4. WP4 Comparative analysis and impact dissemination – This will pull all data and analyses from WPs 1, 2 and 3 and will run throughout the final 12 months of the project. Cross-city and cross-country comparisons will be drawn and the overall research question will be answered. A significant amount of our activities will be disseminating findings to our key academic and development beneficiaries (see Pathways to Impact).