• Canada
• French National Research Agency (ANR) close

The ability to predict forest fire activity at monthly, seasonal, and above-annual time scales is critical to mitigate its impacts, including fire-driven dynamics of ecosystem and socio-economic services. Fire is the primary driving factor of the ecosystem dynamics in the boreal forest, directly affecting global carbon balance and atmospheric concentrations of the trace gases including carbon dioxide. Resilience of ocean-atmosphere system provides potential for advanced detection of upcoming fire season intensity. There is a strong potential in using a large body of paleo- and dendrochronological reconstructions to improve predictability of weather extremes such periods of regionally increased fire activity. We propose that joint analyses of historical fire proxies (fire scars and charcoal in the lake sediments) with independently obtained proxies of climate variability and vegetation cover should contribute towards better knowledge of modern climate drivers of forest fires and predictability of fire activity at multiple temporal scales. In this project we will identify climatic drivers controlling boreal fire activity and its predictability at monthly, seasonal and annual timescales by relying on analyses of multiple proxies of modern and historic fire activity, and climate-ocean variability. We will also provide monthly to century-scale predictions of future fire activity and to translate these into impacts on ecosystem services and metrics of socio-economic performance. We argue that capitalizing on multi-proxy data comparisons should improve predictability of fire activity via (a) a large overlap between climate and fire proxies, which dramatically extends the period covered by instrumental observations and improves robustness of analyses, (b) a more realistic translation of fire hazard metrics into actual fire activity, and (c) a better separation of low vs. high frequency variability in the fire activity, an important aspect in the modeling of the future trends in fire activity.

Among other consequences, the Covid-19 crisis has prompted the public authorities to rethink the use of public space, particularly roads, in order to develop means of transport that are both efficient and adapted to the health context. Fearing a desertion of public transport and a massive shift towards the automobile, the leaders and technical managers of Europe, North America and South America have turned to active modes, including the bicycle that appeared as a vehicle adapted to ensure minimum physical social distance. The objective of the VÉLOTACTIQUE project is to collect data that will provide practitioners and researchers with the first elements of knowledge on the implementation and reception of tactical cycling town planning in the context of the health crisis, as well as its contribution to energy transition. VÉLOTACTIQUE is based on a comparative study carried out in France, in the metropolises of Besançon, Grenoble, Montpellier, Lyon, Paris, Rennes, Saint-Étienne, in Switzerland, in Lausanne and Geneva and in the Americas, in particular in Montreal and Bogotá. To do this, VÉLOTACTIQUE is based on an exploratory and comparative approach and intend to collect data over 12 months on policies, their developments, their reception with users and the changes observed in practices. The work program of VÉLOTACTIQUE is structured around 4 tasks, allowing the different sites and the different partners to be associated each time. In addition to the task dedicated to project management, the link with partner urban communities and the promotion of results (T1), the project revolves around 3 complementary tasks: an analysis of public policies within the metropolitan areas studied (T2 ); mapping of cycle paths and flows and use of the various paths (T3); and observation of the reception of arrangements and measures with cyclists with a focus on new bicycle users (T4).

Tropical freshwater systems support fisheries that provide food security and incomes for hundreds of millions of people worldwide. These fisheries are more likely to be heavily exploited across all species, size classes and trophic levels, in contrast to temperate target fisheries where capital cost, barriers to entry, and travel distance focus exploitation on high value species. Almost nothing is known about how tropical indiscriminate fisheries respond to change. They may be fragile due to chaotic interactions between complex biology and complex human use, or their foodwebs may be simplified by heavy exploitation in ways that make them robust and resilient in the face of change. Climate change therefore puts these systems at risk in ways that have huge repercussions for poverty alleviation but are very poorly understood. Here, we propose to (i) construct a general theory for understanding the social and ecological implications of truly indiscriminate fisheries under climate change, and; (ii) develop and test a specific application of this theory for the important case of the Tonle Sap fishery, Cambodia. Our focus on the Tonle Sap—perhaps the largest indiscriminate tropical freshwater fishery—allows us to inform responses to climate change in a fishery of major importance and one in which climate change interacts with other flow modifications (such as upstream development). We bring social science, fisheries, economics and management expertise to bear on this problem from research labs in eight universities and NGOs across three continents. The results of the research will be integrated into management through partners in three ministries, multiple communities and NGOs. Social impact in Cambodia will result by informing implementation of recent major management changes that have converted privately held fishing lots into community fisheries. Our team includes NGOs, local universities and early-career researchers to help effect this change. Internationally, our results will inform similar systems that feed and provide income for millions of people by revealing management tools effective in heavily exploited, dynamic freshwater fisheries as climate changes.

A joint Franco-Quebec collaboration for the consolidation and development of research projects on the theme of death in a context of migration. This international collaboration aims to examine different themes relating to death in the context of migration, including material, legal, institutional, associative, familial, moral and emotional dimensions. This implies understanding death as an integral part of the migration experience, both as a reality and as a potentiality with multiple effects. The challenge of this program is twofold, because it necessitates bringing together two questions which have rarely been addressed together in the scientific literature, while at the same time drawing on a heterogeneous multidisciplinary corpus. At the present time, no such network exists in Canada or internationally. This grant will enable the consolidation and development of an inter-university network by supporting the conditions for collaboration and research between researchers, students and professionals from diverse milieu and countries. The themes of death and migration will be examined from a multifaceted perspective drawing on several disciplines, fields of practice and cultural universes. The program itself will be structured around two axes: 1) the development of joint research projects based on qualitative and comparative methods, narratives and case-studies as means of advancing knowledge in the field of death and migration; 2) the sharing and transfer of scientific knowledge.

This project addresses public policy issues and social innovation in relation to the demographic challenges that face France and Québec. Its main goal is to investigate the role of the State and that of other social actors in policy design and implementation in the area of homecare for the elderly,in order to seize how political and administrative mechanisms actually operate in this area and to assess capacities to substantiate the idea of a general interest. Population in France and in Québec is aging at a rapid pace, and this demographic challenge raises crucial issues in terms of providing adequate homecare services in the future. Our project thus addresses questions of policy design and implementation, costs and accessibility of homecare; responses to these questions will affect the quality of life of seniors in the long run and ultimately their choice of staying home or moving to nursing homes. Our research aims at investigating : 1) to what extent public policy is being « co-constructed » by government and actors from private and nonprofit sectors as part of a larger policy process, and can such process generate innovative forms of social actions and more freedom of action for policy implementation ; 2) what repercussions such new repertoire of actions may have on social groups engaging in homecare policy, taking into account their different statuses, resources and responsibilities in the delivery of homecare as well as external constraints associated with the contingencies of daily life and the special needs of seniors living at home; 3) finally, which means can senior citizens rely on, individually or as a social group, in order to partake in such political dynamics and organisational settings and voice their opinions and needs about homecare delivered at local levels. We will approach our research questions by focusing on the strategies put forward by social actors concerned by issues and challenges of homecare, and the means by which their respective participation as part of a large scope of stakeholders can take place in the ‘co-construction’ and decision-making of public policy in this area. Data will be collected so as to provide the tools for an appraisal of the impacts on professional development, quality of service delivery and responses to the needs of the elderly. Experimental field research methodology based on jointly led French-Québec missions (‘binômes ’) in 4 different regions should provide original comparative material.

The Agricultural Water Innovations in the Tropics (AgWIT) partnership will test key management innovations to reduce impacts of agriculture on water resources, improve climate change resiliency and enhance freshwater security. We will evaluate water and carbon use efficiencies for a range of agricultural production systems under current and alternative management scenarios. We will build on a unique network of tropical agricultural water observatories that integrates eddy covariance towers in Brazil and Costa Rica using infrastructure recently established by two projects funded through the Freshwater Security initiative of the Belmont Forum. Optical and thermal monitoring of ecophysiological indicators of plant water stress at multiple scales will be added to the eddy covariance monitoring systems using field-portable analysers, tower-based sensors, sensors integrated with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), and data obtained via satellite remote sensing. We will also conduct detailed hydrological and isotopic measurements of these soil-plant-water systems in response to soil and water management strategies. We will test the ability of biochar (charcoal derived from waste biomass via pyrolysis) in tropical cropping systems to increase water use efficiencies (from increased soil water storage resulting from biochar additions), increase soil carbon sequestration (through soil application of biochar which has a high carbon content), and improve the water quality of soil leachate (resulting from the filtering effect of biochar, which has very high reactive surface area and exchange capacity). To do this, AgWIT will (i) measure agricultural carbon and water fluxes, crop yields and plant water stress over more than 20 crop cycles in both rainfed and irrigated agricultural systems, (ii) determine using isotopes what portion of water (rainfall and/or irrigation) is used by crops, lost by soil evaporation and percolated beyond the root zone, and (iii) evaluate optimal biochar-based soil treatments to improve crop water use efficiencies. Benchmarking volumetric water, carbon and land footprints under different management strategies will be accompanied by AgWIT social scientist stakeholder group consultations in Brazil and Costa Rica. This will allow evaluation of alternative decision pathways to improve agricultural water management, and reduce vulnerability to climate-change impacts within the hydro-social system. We have strong, on-going relationships with local non-governmental organizations (NGOs), water management agencies and producer groups in both study regions. These relationships will help to structure strategies for specific decisions concerned with freshwater management choices through structured decision making workshops involving local stakeholders and technical specialists. Scenarios identified by stakeholder groups and water managers will be incorporated into hydrological modelling activities, which will also be used to model biochar impacts at field and landscape scales under realistic management scenarios. In sum, AgWIT will develop a globally unique data set of crop responses to biochar amendments, irrigation practices and rainfall patterns. Volumetric water, carbon, land and fertilizer footprints under alternative management scenarios relative to current crop benchmarks are important to producers to aid in water management decision-making. It is also important for the EU because water, carbon, and other resources used in the production of imported agricultural products are indirectly allocated to EU’s consumption. Water and other footprint information will be shared with major life cycle analyses databases in support of the EU’s “single market for green products” initiative.

Maritime activities (commercial and pleasure navigation) can induce indirect effects on the environment. The project is particularly interested in studying their effects on bank erosion (Part 1) and the navigation channel (Part 2). In Part 1, the effects of commercial and pleasure navigation will be compared. In Part 2, the aim is to predict using a 3D model the increase in turbidity and the decrease of dissolved oxygen during dredging and immersion operations. From four approaches (field measurements, laboratory tests, modeling and mathematical simulations, sociological and legal surveys on risk perception), a table of opportunities and navigation scenarios will be developed. Management solutions (new regulations for pleasure or commercial navigation) will be tested in terms of acceptability for reducing the risk of bank erosion. Turbidity and oxygenation results will be used to locate areas at risk of hypoxia and to determine durations of exposure. The project results come from these four approaches. The field measurements will allow to compare (qualitatively and quantitatively) the shipping signatures for a total of four sites in France and Quebec. Laboratory tests will determine sedimentological properties and their transport parameters or improve the formulation of laws relating to muddy sediments. Numerical modeling validated on field and laboratory measurements will be used to study different navigation scenarios (trajectory, speed or regulation) in order to reduce risks related to bank erosion or maintenance operations. Surveys on the perception (sociological with a legal insight) of the risks from collective or semi-directed interview will identify actions to improve the management practices or to change the regulations. At the end of the project, a 3D simulation tool for supporting decision will be available in open-source. Scientific analyses of the effects of commercial and recreational navigation on the risks of bank erosion or hypoxia will be available for improving practices. The project consortium involves various organizations in France and Quebec for a highly transdisciplinary approach with the involvement of universities, a public administrative institution, port authorities, actors in economic development or maritime transport, a community representing First Nations. The approach is also intersectoral (natural sciences and engineering, human and social sciences) and strongly interdisciplinary (sociology, law, civil engineering, physics and fluid mechanics, geophysics and applied mathematics). An external committee will be set up to communicate the results to international, federal, national or regional, municipal and associative bodies. Finally the scientific results will be communicated at congresses and published in international journals.

Source streams, or headwaters, are often provided with the least protection from forestry and other land uses. However, the impact on ecological status of small streams from increasing water temperature, mobilising sediment, nutrients and contaminants may overwhelm the resilience of these stream ecosystems. Moreover, such changes initiate the downstream transport of these altered conditions. Protection of source streams by providing sufficient buffers is considered to be costly, but that is primarily as opportunity costs for industry. When the values of ecosystem services to downstream users is included, there is a potentially different solution. This is critical to fulfilling the Water Framework Directive 7 (and similar goals for protection of water in Canada and other countries) to ensure that anthropogenic alterations do not impair the ecological status of streams, or their inputs to downstream rivers and lakes. Source streams with small catchment areas are also prone to extreme events, both droughts and floods, relevant to the Floods Directive. Moreover, climate-proofing our stream networks through riparian area protection to reduce uncertainty about water supplies and downstream impacts may provide additional values to aid in sorting out the trade-offs among benefits (relevant to Horizon 2020). This project aims to estimate the ecological, hydrological, water quality, and economic consequences of different management scenarios (e.g., buffers), by comparing the economic and social trade-offs for different value sets and management practices, and to reduce uncertainty of how these possible impacts integrate across scales. We have three objectives. First, we will develop a model platform to explore the consequences of various forms of streamside management around source (headwater) streams. This model will use existing and new data on nutrient flows, sediment fluxes, temperature increases, and loss of productive capacity under different forest management treatments and across many landscapes. The opportunity costs of foregone timber extraction will be compared against the trade-offs to other ecosystem values (clean water, flood protection, productivity). We will generate scenarios of different management configurations to be explored by policy-makers. This will enable a discussion of the value of better protecting source streams and perhaps giving up some protection to larger streams to meet Water Framework Directive objectives. Our second objective is to augment the available data for small stream responses to forest management across our varied landscapes, using comparisons of harvested versus unharvested (no recent harvests) with and without riparian reserves, and to compare headwater versus larger streams. This will be coupled with mesocosm-scale experiments to determine mechanisms of responses by small streams to forestry impacts. Our third objective is to prepare a design and white paper for the large, distributed, landscape-scale experiment that should be done to determine the ecosystem values gained by protection of headwater streams.