Large uncertainties remain in understanding the evolution of fire activity under projected warming scenarios because fire is a complex process to integrate into global modelling. Empirical models used for projections lack potential changes in the interaction between climate, vegetation and fire. Process-based models of the coupled vegetation-fire system provide new tools to address this issue. Evaluating those models against benchmark datasets from charcoal sediment records, outside of the modern climate conditions range, is necessary. Long marine charcoal records capture regional-scale biomass burning over a large range of natural climate variability, i.e. multiple warm and cold climate states. The development of comprehensive data-model comparisons is limited by the lack of common units between data and model output. BRAISE intends to develop a calibration which, applied on paleofire records, should provide new datasets of regional burnt areas for key periods in the past.

The hydrological cycle plays an important role in the Earth´s climate and is vital for Human populations. The spatial pattern of climatological mean sea surface salinity (SSS) is highly correlated with the long-term mean Evaporation-Precipitation spatial pattern and therefore constitute a particularly sensitive marker of water cycle. In this project, we propose to reconstruct past low latitude hydrological changes by constraining past salinity changes using innovative approaches. The reconstruction of past SSS remains a challenge in paleoclimatology. We propose a combination of different approach based on bio/geochemical analyses in marine sediment cores and integration with numerical models. Results will serve to evaluate numerical climate models used to predict future climate change in the low latitude hydroclimate and its impact.

While it is now unanimously agreed that pesticides are responsible for some effects on human health, many questions remain unanswered with regard to specific pesticides, specific health outcomes sensitive populations, etc. For instance, the effects of neonicotinoids, glyphosate and SDHI have been called into question in recent years, as has the specific impact on children or individuals living near treated fields. Additional questions will undoubtedly emerge in the coming years concerning the many hundreds of substances that have been registered in France since 1950. Precise knowledge of each molecule or situation thus appears necessary in order to answer public health questions, to put forward appropriate preventive measures, to direct alternative solutions and guide compensation measures for occupational diseases. Most of the knowledge acquired over the last few decades on the effects of pesticides mainly comes from studies on farmers, but agriculture does not cover all exposure situations, nor all the molecules to which the population may be exposed. In France, the “Labbé” regulation currently limits the use of synthetic pesticides in non-agricultural areas. While the use of conventional pesticides has been virtually banned in urban areas and for individuals, it remains in use by professionals in many cases (e.g. on sports fields, transport infrastructure, and by horticulturalists and plant-nursery workers). Finally, not all the effects of past exposure are not known and alternatives - such as pyrethrum derivatives, other biopesticides or even nanopesticides - also need to be studied both now and in the future. Our main research hypothesis is that pesticides - including biopesticides - used in green spaces both now and / or in the past may have a chronic health impact on workers and the general population linked to their composition and to their use practices. The main objective of EVISA is to provide new insights into past and present pesticide exposures to in the green spaces and their potential health effects, based on real-life data. Multidisciplinary, associating epidemiology, expology, chemistry and ergonomics, EVISA has 3 axes: 1) identification of the uses of pesticides. It will consist in building a task-exposure matrix giving the correspondence between the different tasks carried out by workers in green spaces (weeding, treatment of ornamental plants, etc.) and the substances they may have handled during their career. 2) characterization of exposures. This axis will make it possible, through field studies, to determine the levels of exposure to pesticides among workers in green spaces during treatments and on the following days in contact with plants and surfaces, and to identify the determinants of these levels. 3) health analysis within the AGRICAN cohort. The aim will be to study the association between the parameters of pesticide exposure and the occurrence of various diseases (cancer in general and certain subtypes: prostate, lung, bladder, colon-rectum, central nervous system; neurodegenerative diseases. : Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease; respiratory disease: asthma, chronic bronchitis, etc.) in a subgroup of 6,247 green space workers. The 3 research teams brought together form a multidisciplinary consortium that has experience of working together for several years.The project will provide new data on the exposure and health effects of pesticides in general and glyphosate in particular. The results obtained will be very useful in terms of prevention by providing a better understanding of the determinants of occupational exposure.

Oceanic plankton are sensitive to physical and biochemical changes in the surface ocean, and are key modulators of the ocean carbon cycle via photosynthesis and calcification. Fossil plankton remains exported to the seafloor and preserved in sediments thus hold key clues on both past climate changes as well as associated biological responses and feedbacks. The western equatorial Indian Ocean (WEIO) is a major player in tropical ocean-atmosphere climate dynamics, with far-reaching impacts on global climate patterns. In 2021, the SCRATCH cruise onboard the research vessel Marion Dufresne II collected high-quality, complete sediment cores spanning the Pleistocene (last ~2 million years) from the WEIO, with the aim of resolving past climate variability and volcanic activity in this important region. Here, we propose to study the co-evolution of plankton, coral reefs, and climate over the Pleistocene. We will perform paired paleogenetic, biomarker, and microfossil analyses, as well as reconstruct key paleoceanographic variables to constrain background climate change, in four sediment cores recovered during SCRATCH. Using state-of-the-art methodologies across three partner institutes, we will combine expertise on paleoceanography, organic geochemistry, genetics, and micropaleontology to address the hypothesis that cyclical changes in the morphology of plankton fossils represent genetic evolution, forced by external climate cycles. Anticipated results will (1) provide a comprehensive picture of paleoceanographic evolution of the WEIO, including Indian Ocean Dipole mean state, (2) demonstrate for the first time the relationship between genetic and morphological plankton evolution in multiple groups, and (3) shed light on external (climatic, volcanic) drivers of evolution, plankton community dynamics, and pelagic versus neritic marine productivity.

Climate change, declining sediment supply, and global population growth in the coastal zone are projected to result in unprecedented socio-economic losses and environmental changes in the coming decades. Coastal management and planning require improved understanding of past and future shoreline evolution and its drivers. However, both observations and models have provided inconsistent or fragmented insight so far. The major cross-discipline advances in the modelling and remote sensing of large-scale (O(1-100 km)) and long-term (O(10 years)) shoreline change, together with the potential of data assimilation to optimally combine satellite imagery and shoreline modelling, calls for an ambitious and innovative research project. In SHORMOSAT we will both improve a state-of-the-art hybrid shoreline model (LX-Shore) and apply well-adapted data-assimilation techniques using more than 35 years of satellite-derived shoreline data. We will further address shoreline change and the primary drivers and processes and their interactions, and will explore the future of beaches where accommodation space is limited by e.g. coastal structures. We will apply this new framework to seven carefully selected national and international field sites distributed across three continents, representing the most widespread sandy coast environments and where a wealth of field data are collected by our consortium and international collaborators: (i) coastal embayments (O(1 km)) with various degrees of headland/groyne sand bypassing and wave exposure, (ii) wave-dominated deltas (O(10-100 km)), (iii) long sandy barriers (O(100 km)) interrupted by tidal inlets and estuary mouths. Improvements to LX-Shore and extension of its scope of application will be achieved by including obstacle sand bypassing, sediment source, a beach profile change module and a new wave module. Approximately 35 years of time series of satellite-derived waterline, shoreline position and associated errors will be generated at our seven study sites by developing and applying advanced image analysis technics. LX-Shore will be calibrated on our study sites based on a non-linear optimisation method and we will further develop a new data-assimilation framework in LX-Shore using satellite-derived shorelines. These developments will allow addressing the dominant spatial and temporal modes of shoreline variability and identifying the respective contributions of the different drivers and links between model parameter variability and wave forcing variability for the different coastal environments over the past ~35 years. Such an assessment will guide the preferred model configurations to address future shoreline change. Building on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) wave and sea-level-rise projections, future shoreline change will be estimated up to 2100 using ensemble simulations, together with the uncertainties related mainly to sea-level rise and model parameters. We will address if, where, when and why critical changes may occur (e.g., potential demise of beaches where accommodation space is limited). Overall, SHORMOSAT will provide fresh insight into past and future multi-decadal shoreline change and trajectory shifts in a context of climate change and increasing anthropogenic pressure, with important overarching implications for society and coastal planning.