In the opening session, Philippe Freyssinet, Director of Research, Scientific Programming and Communication at BRGM, highlighted the innovative nature of the PEPRs within the French research system, whose aim is to to bring together and structure scientific communities, and this is one of the objectives of the PEPR Risks program co-led by BRGM, CNRS, and Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA). This program aims to integrate knowledge produced by different communities—particularly geosciences, engineering, digital sciences, and social sciences and humanities (SSH), which often work in silos—and to formalise risk science to contribute to the development of a new national strategy for risk and disaster management.
Status of Risks and Disasters in France and Research and Management Challenges
During a round table, Béatrice Michalland, Deputy Director of Environmental Information (CGDD), presented a statistical study by the Ministry of Ecological Transition on natural hazards in France and the losses associated with natural disasters, highlighting the predominance of floods over the past 40 years and an increasing trend in drought events and clay shrink–swell phenomena over the last ten years. Olivier Bouc, Prevention Innovation Advisor at the Caisse Centrale de Réassurance, added that “climate change is already visible for us,” specifying that geotechnical drought events (RGA) now account for a larger share of the natural disaster compensation system. He emphasised the need to identify which assets should be prioritised for preventive measures.
In the context of climate change and the preparation of the 3rd National Adaptation Plan (PNACC), Véronique Lehideux, Head of the Natural and Hydraulic Risks Service at the Directorate General for Risk Prevention (DGPR), stressed the necessity of strengthening prevention and developing a culture of risk. DGPR mobilises research notably to improve knowledge of hazards and to model phenomena. There is also a need to improve knowledge of glacial and periglacial risks. Béatrice Michalland added that better understanding of combined risks is necessary. Finally, Olivier Bouc highlighted the need for operationalisation: that is, considering how research results can be adopted by public authorities, companies, and citizens.
Overview of the Eight PEPR Risques Research Projects
This scientific day also provided an opportunity to present the first work and planned actions of the eight targeted research projects of PEPR Risques.
Projects focused on specific risk basins
- Mountain risks (IRIMONT): Aims to produce innovative results on critical processes, risk evolution in mountainous areas and their components—especially emerging risks—and on methods for understanding and anticipating them, to develop projections of future risks in target territories and pilot sites, partially extrapolatable, and to capitalise these studies in enduring infrastructures accessible to national and international territories and institutional and private actors.
- Coastal risks (IRICOT): Seeks to better understand and quantify socio-historical processes; coastal hydro-sedimentary processes; improve methods for scaling from regional to local levels where assets are exposed; integrate these advances into refined risk and crisis management assessments; understand, formalise and model the changing nature of multiple and cascading risks; and establish projections and risk mapping to account for these evolutions.
- NaTech risks: Aims to create a NaTech community with diverse scientific disciplines, focused on technological risk; to improve methods and tools for risk analysis by integrating socio-technical approaches and accounting for uncertainties; and to support anticipation and management of NaTech crises based on accident scenarios and the development of methodological and modelling tools considering the specificities and various actors of the studied territories.
- Overseas risks: Targets three challenges: identifying new observables for studying natural hazards and their anthropogenic impacts at large spatio-temporal scales (e.g., long seismic and volcanic cycles and their potential coupling, cyclone cyclicity); developing holistic and integrated models of complex processes while accounting for uncertainties related to climate change projections and coupled predictive models; and developing integrated risk management strategies adapted to overseas and intertropical regions, capable of addressing extreme events and cascading events that induce multiple risks (eruptions, instabilities, tsunamis, floods).
Projects addressing cross-cutting issues
- Collective chairs: Dedicated to establishing four research chairs to strengthen transversal and interdisciplinary scientific activities by developing integrated risk approaches, producing new scientific knowledge on multi-risk situations in observation, anticipation, and governance, and creating conditions for better appropriation of scientific knowledge and expertise for decision-making and public action.
- Digital platforms: Aims to design a service infrastructure providing the scientific community with shared modelling, analysis, and mapping tools for developing risk scenarios.
- Risks and societies: Seeks to characterise the French system for studying and managing risks and disasters, contribute to the construction of a new integrated framework for risk analysis and management, and design and experiment with new tools and arrangements for inclusive risk governance.
- INTERRISK: Dedicated to international actions in risk science, including an international doctoral program and initiatives supporting mobility.
Soraya Boudia (CNRS), Didier Georges (UGA) et Gilles Grandjean (BRGM), co-directeurs du PEPR Risques (IRiMa) lors de la journée scientifique 2024 du PEPR Risques (IRiMa) à Orléans.
© PEPR Risques
Upcoming calls for research projects
The PEPR co-directors also presented the planned themes for upcoming calls:
- A call for expressions of interest currently under development, focused on the development of new and integrated approaches to better anticipate, prevent and manage sudden or gradual high-impact risks (floods, flash floods, torrential floods, mega-fires, and risks with extended temporal impacts: post-fire erosion, runoff, drought – heat islands, clay shrink–swell). The launch is planned for early 2025, supporting a project with funding of €3 million.
- A call for projects (text also under development) in the field of risk management, focusing on:
- New strategies to better manage risks across the cycle of prevention, anticipation, crisis management, response, and recovery;
- New solutions inherent to each type of hazard, vulnerable systems exposed, and the capacities of territories to respond.
This call is expected to support several projects with funding of €800K per project.
Nearly 100 participants attended the day. Many thanks to all for these constructive exchanges.