Ying Zheng, Larissa A. Naylor, Susan Waldron, David M. Oliver, Lei Gao

Knowledge exchange (KE) has been increasingly used to translate the scientific findings to produce outputs that inform land users and policy makers to lead to the sustainable environmental management. As part of the wider China-UK Critical Zone (CZ) programme, a KE research project was conducted to help ensure research results can be more effectively delivered to those who need them. Following on the early stage of exploration in Guizhou’s karst area, similar KE survey and interview research was carried out in Jiangxi’s red soil landscape in March 2018. This research sought to understand the current ways in which Chinese leaders and farmers learn from scientists and what are key issues facing them that the red soil CZ research can help with. This report documents the findings of the needs of local farmers, their farming practices and understanding of landscape processes, along with learning preferences of different public groups (farmers and village, town and country leaders). A conceptual model of science-policy-practice interface was developed. This understanding, together with the KE findings in karst area, can provide valuable information for the future design of KE delivery and KE outputs arising from the CZ projects and those of others.