Modelling farm vulnerability to flooding: towards the appraisal of vulnerability mitigation policies

In France, two new kinds of flood management policies are promoted: floodplain restoration and vulnerability mitigation. Few experience feedback exist on these policies but they may have strong impacts on farms. Flood management on Rhône River is highly illustrative of these policies and local authorities would like to appraise the efficiency of these policies with an economic tool (Cost-Benefit Analysis) to help decision making. But the current methods of flood damage modelling do not make the appraisal of these policies possible; mainly because they do not take into account the organizational and temporal dimensions of damage formation and propagation at farm scale. After a presentation of the Rhône River context and policies, we review existing methods of flood damage modelling for agriculture and show the interest to focus on the farm scale instead of land plot scale. Based upon the theoretical frameworks for systemic approach, we detail the construction of our conceptual model of farm vulnerability before presenting a case study that shows how the model can be implemented to compute flood damage at farm scale. Finally, the outlooks concerning the use of the model to appraise vulnerability mitigation policies and its application at regional scale are developed.Modélisation;Vulnérabilité;Langage UML;Évaluation des risques;Exploitation agricole;Inondation

Caractérisation des stratégies de gestion pour la modélisation de la vulnérabilité des exploitations agricoles aux inondations : Lier les dimensions spatiale, organisationnelle et temporelle d'un système complexe

Les politiques publiques de gestion des inondations s'orientent vers la restauration des champs d'expansion de crue et de réduction de la vulnérabilité, qui auront un impact important sur les exploitations agricoles. L'évaluation des effets de ces politiques sur les exploitations agricoles n'est pas envisageable avec les méthodologies actuelles et le retour d'expérience quasiment inexistant. Il était donc nécessaire de développer un modèle de simulation des dommages directs et induits en prenant en compte la dimension systémique de l'exploitation agricole. Pour cela, nous proposons un modèle conceptuel de la vulnérabilité à l'échelle de l'exploitation agricole et montrons comment il nous a permis de mettre en évidence l'importance des stratégies de gestion post-inondation pour la modélisation des dommages. Nous présentons ensuite les résultats des enquêtes réalisées sur les exploitations arboricoles de la zone aval du Rhône pour la caractérisation de ces stratégies. Enfin, nous montrons comment nous avons intégré dans le modèle de simulation des dommages, les données recueillies par enquêtes. Les premiers résultats de simulation des dommages confirment l'importance de prendre en compte les effets induits de l'inondation sur le système " exploitation agricole ". En perspective, l'utilisation du modèle de simulation des dommages dans le cadre d'une évaluation économique des politiques de réduction de la vulnérabilité des exploitations agricoles sur la zone aval du Rhône est discutée.INONDATION;POLITIQUE PUBLIQUE;EXPLOITATION AGRICOLE;VULNERABILITE;SIMULATION;STRATEGIE

Assistive technologies to address capabilities of people with dementia: from research to practice

Assistive technologies (AT) became pervasive and virtually present in all our life domains. They can be either an enabler or an obstacle leading to social exclusion. The Fondation Médéric Alzheimer gathered international experts of dementia care, with backgrounds in biomedical, human and social sciences, to analyse how AT can address the capabilities of people with dementia, on the basis of their needs. Discussion covered the unmet needs of people with dementia, the domains of daily life activities where AT can provide help to people with dementia, the enabling and empowering impact of technology to improve their safety and wellbeing, barriers and limits of use, technology assessment, ethical and legal issues. The capability approach (possible freedom) appears particularly relevant in person-centered dementia care and technology development. The focus is not on the solution, rather on what the person can do with it: seeing dementia as disability, with technology as an enabler to promote capabilities of the person, provides a useful framework for both research and practice. This article summarizes how these concepts took momentum in professional practice and public policies in the past fifteen years (2000-2015), discusses current issues in the design, development and economic model of AT for people with dementia, and covers how these technologies are being used and assessed

Interaction of ITER-like ICRF antenna with Tore Supra plasmas: insight from modelling

The non-linear interaction of ion cyclotron resonance frequency (ICRF) waves with the plasma edge is one of the challenges faced by high power wave heating systems in next step devices. Such interaction is often associated with parallel RF electric fields excited by spurious parallel RF currents flowing on the antenna front face I -Experimental results 1 -ICRF antenna configurations. The prototype launcher ITER-lik

Interactions between Schistosoma haematobium group species and their Bulinus spp. intermediate hosts along the Niger River Valley

Background Urogenital schistosomiasis, caused by infection with Schistosoma haematobium, is endemic in Niger but complicated by the presence of Schistosoma bovis, Schistosoma curassoni and S. haematobium group hybrids along with various Bulinus snail intermediate host species. Establishing the schistosomes and snails involved in transmission aids disease surveillance whilst providing insights into snail-schistosome interactions/compatibilities and biology. Methods Infected Bulinus spp. were collected from 16 villages north and south of the Niamey region, Niger, between 2011 and 2015. From each Bulinus spp., 20–52 cercariae shed were analysed using microsatellite markers and a subset identified using the mitochondrial (mt) cox1 and nuclear ITS1 + 2 and 18S DNA regions. Infected Bulinus spp. were identified using both morphological and molecular analysis (partial mt cox1 region). Results A total of 87 infected Bulinus from 24 sites were found, 29 were molecularly confirmed as B. truncatus, three as B. forskalii and four as B. globosus. The remaining samples were morphologically identified as B. truncatus (n = 49) and B. forskalii (n = 2). The microsatellite analysis of 1124 cercariae revealed 186 cercarial multilocus genotypes (MLGs). Identical cercarial genotypes were frequently (60%) identified from the same snail (clonal populations from a single miracidia); however, several (40%) of the snails had cercariae of different genotypes (2–10 MLG’s) indicating multiple miracidial infections. Fifty-seven of the B. truncatus and all of the B. forskalii and B. globosus were shedding the Bovid schistosome S. bovis. The other B. truncatus were shedding the human schistosomes, S. haematobium (n = 6) and the S. haematobium group hybrids (n = 13). Two B. truncatus had co-infections with S. haematobium and S. haematobium group hybrids whilst no co-infections with S. bovis were observed. Conclusions This study has advanced our understanding of human and bovid schistosomiasis transmission in the Niger River Valley region. Human Schistosoma species/forms (S. haematobium and S. haematobium hybrids) were found transmitted only in five villages whereas those causing veterinary schistosomiasis (S. bovis), were found in most villages. Bulinus truncatus was most abundant, transmitting all Schistosoma species, while the less abundant B. forskalii and B. globosus, only transmitted S. bovis. Our data suggest that species-specific biological traits may exist in relation to co-infections, snail-schistosome compatibility and intramolluscan schistosome development