Stream-lake networks are an example of blue infrastructures that are fragmented by grey infrastructures in the form of dams, weirs, culverts, etc. Many man-made obstructions form absolute barriers, with dramatic effects on fish communities and ecosystem services. Restoring connectivity by removing dams and weirs are important means for improving the functioning of river-scapes, but may cause the spread of invasive species. This trade-off is not implemented in the national guidelines for the Water Framework Directive in most EU countries. Although many local managers are aware of the conflict, there is a lack of quantitative tools that managers can use when balancing conflicting goals. The overarching aim of this project is therefore to provide a decision support system for the management of connectivity in river-scapes networks. To establish an empirical base for the decision system we will: 1) Quantify the colonization rates for key fish species, 2) Quantify the relationship between fragment size and extinction rate, 3) Investigate how effects of fragmentation are modified by other stressors, and 4) Investigate how end-users value native and non-native species as well as the habitats affected by connectivity modifications. These results will be integrated into a decision support system, which will be developed in dialogue with local and regional managers, national authorities responsible for the implementation of the Water Framework Directive, and other stakeholders. The most important part of the support system will be interactive maps that can be used to explore scenarios resulting from removing or adding barriers.

With the rapid economic and social development in the industrialised and developing countries, these communities are increasingly at the forefront of most pressing challenges. Along with the many social and economic benefits of urbanisation comes a plethora of construction and environmental problems, some of staggering proportion. One of these problems results from the evolution of the development strategies of urban areas. Indeed, contrary to what has been done for decades, there is a tendency to increase housing density in urban areas and in certain neighbourhoods. This would led to a reduction of car travel, a better use of public transportation, and thus to a reduction of pollution. In this context, one strategy is to use former industrial areas abandoned during the last 20 years to develop new housings / commercial zones. Most of these abandoned areas are situated at the edges of existing cities. Nevertheless, there are a number of issues that need to be addressed. These soils can be considered as problematic soils from a geotechnical point of view (clay, organic soils, and sediments). There is also a major environmental issue related to the quality of the subsurface environment that is being adversely affected by former industrial, municipal, mining and agricultural activities. Therefore, there is a need to develop innovative integrated and collective multidisciplinary approaches to deal with these issues at the European level, from geotechnical and geoenvironmental points of view. This will then permit a more efficient management of problematic areas both from the geoenvironmental and geotechnical points of view. The proposed research program will bring together expertise in civil engineering, geochemistry and geoenvironmental engineering to achieve these objectives. The combination of these approaches may decrease material inputs, reduce energy consumption and emissions, recover valuable by-products and minimise wastes. Therefore, there is a need to develop innovative integrated and collective multidisciplinary approaches to deal with these issues at the European level, from geotechnical and geoenvironmental points of view. The proposed research network GeoStab will bring together expertise in civil engineering, geochemistry and geoenvironmental engineering to achieve these objectives. The main objective associated to this ANR project is to foster the creation of the GeoStab network. The present members of the network established some research priorities and actions to be undertaken. To carry out its research program, the network will apply for funding at the EU level. The network will apply for an “Innovative Training Network” program (Marie Curie Action) for the call of 2015 under the coordination of Université de Lorraine. The intended form of the ITN will be a European Training Network (ETN). The creation of this research network is in line with the first societal challenges identified within the call for proposal Strategic Agenda “Efficient resource management and adaptation to climate change” and within the European Research Programme “Horizon 2020” challenge “Climate action, resource efficiency and raw materials”. This project will contribute to development of solutions for better use of raw materials from construction and demolition waste. The research will promote a network of partners in the area of soil stabilisation / solidification with a focus on sustainable methods. It would also foster the protection and sustainable management of natural resources for construction. The involvement of private partners reflects their will to increase competitiveness of soil-construction-waste treatment-related industries.

The ongoing biodiversity crisis imperils Nature’s Contributions to People and is being exacerbated by climate change. Genetic diversity within species is key to maintaining adaptive potential and ecosystem resilience, and is one of the three pillars of biodiversity, but is widely ignored in both policy and management, due to knowledge and implementation gaps. In GINAMO, we follow a co-creation process to provide clear scientific guidelines and ready-to-use workflows to estimate genetic indicators that are understood and embraced by end users. Two indicators in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework are appropriate for monitoring and reporting on genetic diversity. These indicators relate a) to a minimum effective population size, Ne, of 500, with Ne being an essential biodiversity variable enabling the quantification of genetic diversity loss, and b) to maintain genetically distinct populations within species. In GINAMO we first will determine best practices to obtain accurate and robust Ne estimates for species with reference DNA-based data (WP2). Genetic data will help designing realistic evolutionary scenarios for simulations, to understand how spatial distributions, life history traits, data quantity and types, sampling strategies and statistical methods affect Ne estimates. For species without DNA-based data available, in WP3 and WP4 we will develop best practices to estimate Ne from proxies with publicly available data sources (e.g population size counts, occurrence data in observation portals, and relevant terrestrial habitat properties generated by earth observation data). A key component in GINAMO is to partner and co-decide from the outset with the stakeholder community for an optimal integration of all resources produced from WP2 to WP4 activities (i.e. databases, scripts, and guidelines) to meet their concerns, reporting duties and monitoring needs. Standardised and automated workflows will be co-created for assessing genetic indicators on various transboundary geographical scales, following FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) principles (WP5). The impact of the co-creation processes on participants’ knowledge, perceived usefulness of genetic indicators and willingness to implement, will be evaluated through interviews, focus groups and surveys (WP6). This co-creation process will strongly benefit from the multidisciplinary research team, including both natural and social scientists with expertise in policy and implementation. GINAMO effectively fits all three themes of the call as it will integrate various sources of available data in existing biodiversity databases (Theme 3) to address knowledge gaps (Theme 2) and provide outreach materials and Open Science tools for genetic indicators applicable in international (e.g. EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030) and national policies, to improve new biodiversity data collection and inform specific conservation management actions (Theme 1).