Understanding how past societies responded to extreme climatic changes is crucial for gaining insight into current and future environmental challenges, especially environmental stress and sanitary conditions in the context of the present climate change impacting the Near-East. Evidence from paleoclimate data clearly indicates that climatic fluctuations in this area over the past millennium have not been homogeneous. Instead, a high degree of variability over time and across space is pointed out by hydrological changes in particular steep topography environments. These fluctuations were challenging for societies since precipitation variability can impact agriculture, food production but also sanitary conditions and the spread of disease. This project investigates the interaction between climate change and social responses since the medieval period in the poorly studied Near-East region, specifically on the island of Cyprus, and uses novel indicators for both climate and social vulnerability. On one hand, natural archives such as speleothems provide high-resolution and quantitative hydrological and temperature data to complement existing dendrochronology data as well as compiled weather data for the last century. Compilation of paleoclimate data will be transformed into climate maps of the island. On the other hand, the compiled public health archives of mortality and diseases together with past landscape maps offer new indicators to analyze social responses.

Vector-borne diseases (dengue, Zika, chikungunya) are an important public health issue. Understanding their transmission dynamics remains a major challenge at the sub-urban level. Indeed, environmental heterogeneities, variations in vector densities and daily mobility constitute a lock on the definition of epidemic risk indicators at this scale. MO3 therefore aims to (i) develop a simulation model to study the sensitivity of epidemic dynamics to targeted scenarios of anti-vector fights and (ii) evaluate in a large metropolis where dengue is endemic, Bangkok (Thailand), the effectiveness of these strategies. In cities where these diseases are endemic, our first hypothesis is that the urban territory has a limited number of places favorable to the maintenance of mosquito population during the inter-epidemic season, sufficient to ensure local, continuous and low-noise circulation of viruses. With seasonal changes (rising temperatures, monsoon rains), vector populations are exploding, increasing the risk of spreading viruses from these areas. Our second hypothesis is that the structuring of urban space (residence, economic and commercial activities, vegetated spaces) and the resulting discontinuities structure the daily mobilities of populations, and potentially the spread of pathogens in epidemic proportions. It is therefore essential to identify these potential reservoirs of pathogen diffusion early. Moreover, in cities where these diseases are not endemic, or not yet present, the dynamic mapping of the environmental risk based on the ecology of the mosquito must make it possible to identify and monitor the places and the periods favorable to the implantation and the proliferation of mosquito vectors. To achieve these objectives, the MO3 project will rely on differential equations and agent-based model, with high spatial and temporal resolution, to describe finely the urbanized space and the variety of dynamics that unfold there, those of vectors and human populations. Vector dynamics will be influenced by the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of their ecological niche, those of humans by their daily mobility, partly linked to their place of residence, their socio-economic profile and their age. The calibration of the model will be based on various data: satellite images, census, social networks, vector and epidemiological retrospective data. We also plan field surveys. Sites will be selected according to a value gradient of the ecological niche of the vector and a value gradient of centrality of the places. Weekly surveys over a 2-year period will be used to analyze the evolution of adult mosquito stocks with respect to these two indicators, and epidemiological surveys of at-risk populations will be used to assess exposure levels, according to these two indicators. All of this data will also be used to calibrate and validate the simulation model. Exploration methods based on evolutionary algorithms will be mobilized to evaluate, compare and hierarchize the mechanisms of the model with regard to simulated dynamics and observations that they can or must produce or reproduce. These methods will also evaluate and compare vector control strategies against the epidemiological dynamics simulated by the model, in search of the most effective strategy or strategies. MO3's ambition is therefore to develop a generic method that allows for vector-based struggles in priority areas, thus enabling local actors to optimally allocate their available but limited resources.

The aim of this proposal is to analyse the sustainability of territorial organization in French Polynesia by focusing on migration, family structure and policy. By exploring the modes of organization of families, their geographical roots, and the individual mobility trajectories of their members, we aim to identify the mechanisms underpinning the mobility – or immobility – of the populations of French Polynesia. On a territory of multiple islands forming an extensive archipelago, we intend to assess how settlement dynamics are influenced by the location of public services (education, health, transport) and of economic development zones, and more generally by the modes of territorial organization fostered by public policy. The geographical position of French Polynesia with respect to other potential destinations – notably for education and healthcare – such as mainland France, New Caledonia, Asia, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, etc., will also be taken into account. This Oceanian territory is seen here as a network system of settlements with no intermediate land. It is an open space in which the family support network is not bounded by the shores of individual islands. It is a territory of increasing negative net migration, with intense polarization in the local "métro-pôle" (the island of Tahiti and the capital Papeete) served by shipping and air transport hubs. But also a territory of 118 islands grouped into 5 archipelagos scattered over an area as large as Europe in which the most outlying islands are more than 2000 km apart. The concentration of economic development and public services in the capital explains the densification of the urban zone of Papeete over the last 50 years. This densification has led to a major housing crisis, compounded by an economic crisis that may explain the observed return flows towards the outer islands. The role and stability of public services (education, health, transport) subject to the requirement of territorial continuity must exhibit considerable resilience in a society where almost one in two people has moved home in the space of five years. This project offers a unique opportunity to analyse the sustainability of territorial systems from three different angles: place and territory; family and bonds; individuals and their trajectories. Our analyses – both quantitative and qualitative – will explore modes of family organization, public measures and individual characteristics which enable inhabitants to transcend their insularity. In other words, a multi-scalar approach will be applied to shed light on the potential tensions between access to services, family solidarity, territorial roots and, more generally, the continuing presence of populations over such a widely scattered territory Deploying a multidisciplinary team (geographers, demographers, sociologist, statisticians and political scientists), our project is based on two partnerships with the UMR SAGE of Strasbourg university and the UMR IDEES the University of Rouen; and backed by new collaborative agreements with the Institut Statistique de la Polynésie Française (ISPF) which is contributing to the project via data collection operations which are already scheduled and funded (2018 labour force survey, survey on family, housing and long-distance relationships in 2019). This project, highly original in many respects, combines the collection and analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data. It reflects the renewed interest in questions relating to the family and aims to perform unprecedented quantitative research on a territory which has so far received little attention. More generally, it will provide an opportunity to revisit research into the sustainability of territories on the basis of a geographical archetype.

This project deals with the hospitality of urban areas and urban spaces towards new forms of mobility related to the development of travel modes with low environmental impact (bicycles, pedelecs, electric scooters...). This development faces various obstacles: persistent safety problems, the inadequacy of the devices intended for these modes in the field of urban planning and design, the difficulties that the public sector has to adapt to the rapid changes related to the emergence of new technical objects and the increasing role of private operators. This project aims to better understand these obstacles and the means to overcome them, through field studies, in-depth analysis of accidents, in-depth user surveys (on their practices, needs and aspirations) and surveys of stakeholders involved in urban planning and design, within the framework of spatialized analyzes giving a large place to the specificities of the studied areas (the regions of Marseille, Lyon, Strasbourg, and Lausanne). We hypothesize that these various obstacles reflect a gap between the actual development of the practices and needs of the users of this light individual mobility and the way in which public actors plan the territory. In this project, we will first focus on the individual actors moving towards light modes of transport with low environmental impact, on their practices, their representations, but also on their aspirations (workpackage 1). We will then look at the territory's potential for welcoming people, particularly in terms of public space, transport networks and systems, intermodality, spatial ergonomics and the accessibility of resources and different parts of the territory, in relation to the practices and aspirations of the inhabitants moving towards these modes of transport (workpackage 2). Finally, we are interested in the role that collective public actors can play in influencing this potential for reception, in the direction of a more hospitable urban area with regard to the practices, lifestyles, expectations and aspirations of these inhabitants, thus promoting the contribution of these forms of mobility to more sustainable development (workpackage 3). As regards the choice of study sites, the work carried out as part of the project will cover the urban areas of Aix-Marseille, Lyon and Strasbourg and the Lausanne conurbation. Working on the scale of these territories will not only make it possible to cover a wide variety of environments and developments, ranging from dense urban fabrics to suburban and peri-urban spaces, but also to question the reticular nature of the developments that are supposed to accommodate light individual mobility. Moreover, these areas have the particularity of not being at the same stage in the development of this mobility and in the way it is taken into account in the development of circulation spaces. The consortium formed is multidisciplinary. Indeed, this project mobilizes partners recognized in the analysis of mobility practices, travel activity and its accidentality (TS2-LMA, IGD, CEREMA), spatial dynamics and accessibility problems (IDEES-Caen and LIVE, which together developed the methods of spatial ergonomics), and the multiple dimensions of the action on the "urban factory" (LIEU). These different partners will be particularly involved in the implementation of the various workpackages and tasks.

This project aims at investigating how environmental conditions are intrinsically incorporated in the interplay among land uses in urban regions as a two-ways relationship. We argue that the literature is inconclusive on the adequate shape of environmentally friendly cities because the urban internal structure of city is overlooked. We first shed light on environmental attributes across the urban system to identify similar and divergent trends linked to the urban structure. Then, we provide analysis of environmental trade-offs on a sample of urban regions. This proposal is innovative in three respects (i) the knowledge it will provide by linking the internal structure of cities to the heterogeneity in behaviors and to the feedback effect between land uses and urban structure; (ii) the confrontation of cutting edge econometrics and scaling laws viewpoints on cities coming respectively from economics and geography/statistical physics and (iii) the policy recommendations.