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

International audienceIn 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

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

National audienceLes 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

Implementation of sub-nanosecond time-to-digital convertor in field-programmable gate array: applications to time-of-flight analysis in muon radiography

International audienceTime-of-flight (tof) techniques are standard techniques in high energy physics to determine particles propagation directions. Since particles velocities are generally close to c, the speed of light, and detectors typical dimensions at the meter level, the state-of-the-art tof techniques should reach sub-nanosecond timing resolution. Among the various techniques already available, the recently developed ring oscillator TDC ones, implemented in low cost FPGA, feature a very interesting figure of merit since a very good timing performance may be achieved with limited processing ressources. This issue is relevant for applications where unmanned sensors should have the lowest possible power consumption. Actually this article describes in details the application of this kind of tof technique to muon tomography of geological bodies. Muon tomography aims at measuring density variations and absolute densities through the detection of atmospheric muons flux's attenuation, due to the presence of matter. When the measured fluxes become very low, an identified source of noise comes from backwards propagating particles hitting the detector in a direction pointing to the geological body. The separation between through-going and backward-going particles, on the basis of the tof information is therefore a key parameter for the tomography analysis and subsequent previsions

SWEET-HOME ICT technologies for the assessment of elderly subjects

International audienceFunctional assessments are designed to ascertain a person's ability to perform activities of daily living (ADL) and provide valuable diagnostic as well as care-planning information. Currently, the gold-standard for the assessment of functional ability involves clinical rating scales however scales are often limited in their ability to provide objective and sensitive information. In contrast, information and communication technologies (ICT) may overcome these limitations by capturing more fully the functional, well as behavioural and cognitive disturbances associated with Alzheimer disease (AD)

WEST Physics Basis

With WEST (Tungsten Environment in Steady State Tokamak) (Bucalossi et al 2014 Fusion Eng. Des. 89 907-12), the Tore Supra facility and team expertise (Dumont et al 2014 Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion 56 075020) is used to pave the way towards ITER divertor procurement and operation. It consists in implementing a divertor configuration and installing ITER-like actively cooled tungsten monoblocks in the Tore Supra tokamak, taking full benefit of its unique long-pulse capability. WEST is a user facility platform, open to all ITER partners. This paper describes the physics basis of WEST: the estimated heat flux on the divertor target, the planned heating schemes, the expected behaviour of the L-H threshold and of the pedestal and the potential W sources. A series of operating scenarios has been modelled, showing that ITER-relevant heat fluxes on the divertor can be achieved in WEST long pulse H-mode plasmas.EURATOM 63305

Optical anisotropy and photoluminescence temperature dependence for self-assembled InAs quantum islands grown on vicinal (001) InP substrates

International audienceIn this paper, we report on a detailed investigation of the effect of misorientated InP(OOl) substrates on the optical properties of InAs quantum islands grown by molecular beam epitaxy in the Stranski-Krastanow regime. Temperature-dependent photoluminescence and polarization of photoluminescence (PPL) are studied. PPL shows a high degree of linear polarization, near 40%, for the sample grown on the substrate with 2°off miscut angle towards [110] direction (2°F) and only 16% for the sample grown on the substrate with 2°off miscut angle towards [010] direction (2°B). This result pointing out the growth ofInAs quantum wires (QWr) on 2°F substrate and of quasi-isotropic InAs quantum dots (QD) on 2°B substrate. The luminescence remains strong at 300 K as much as 36% of that at 8 K, indicating a strong spatial localization of the carriers in the InAs QIs grown on InP(OOl)

Toward understanding the dynamics of land change in Latin America : potential utility of a resilience approach for building archetypes of landsystems change

Rocha, Juan C. Stockholm University. Stockholm Resilience Centre. Stockholm, Suecia.Baraibar, Matilda M. Stockholm University. Department of Economic History and International Relations. Stockholm, Suecia.Deutsch, Lisa. Stockholm University. Stockholm Resilience Centre. Stockholm, Suecia.Bremond, Ariane de. University of Bern. Centre for Development and Environment. Bern, Suiza.Oestreicher, Jordan S. Universidade de Brasília. Centro de Desenvolvimento Sustentável. Distrito Federal, Brasil.Rositano, Florencia. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Departamento de Producción Vegetal. Cátedra de Cerealicultura. Buenos Aires, Argentina.Gelabert, Cecilia Corina. Universidad de Buenos Aires. Facultad de Agronomía. Departamento de Economía, Desarrollo y Planeamiento Agrícola. Cátedra de Sistemas Agroalimentarios. Buenos Aires, Argentina.e17, 82 p.Climate change, financial shocks, and fluctuations in international trade are some of the reasons why resilience is increasingly invoked in discussions about land-use policy. However, resilience assessments come with the challenge of operationalization, upscaling their conclusions while considering the context-specific nature of land-use dynamics and the common lack of long-term data. We revisit the approach of system archetypes for identifying resilience surrogates and apply it to land-use systems using seven case studies spread across Latin America. The approach relies on expert knowledge and literature-based characterizations of key processes and patterns of land-use change synthesized in a data template. These narrative accounts are then used to guide development of causal networks, from which potential surrogates for resilience are identified. This initial test of the method shows that deforestation, international trade, technological improvements, and conservation initiatives are key drivers of land-use change, and that rural migration, leasing and land pricing, conflicts in property rights, and international spillovers are common causal pathways that underlie land-use transitions. Our study demonstrates how archetypes can help to differentiate what is generic from context dependant. They help identify common causal pathways and leverage points across cases to further elucidate how policies work and where, as well as what policy lessons might transfer across heterogeneous settings

Optical properties of self-assembled InAs quantum islands grown on InP(001) vicinal substrates

International audienceWe have investigated the effect of misorientated InP001 substrates on the optical properties of InAs quantum islands QIs grown by molecular-beam epitaxy in the Stranski-Krastanow regime. Detailed temperature-dependent photoluminescence PL, excitation density PL, and polarization of photoluminescence PPL are studied. PPL shows a high degree of linear polarization near 40% for the nominally oriented substrate n and for the substrate with 2° off miscut angle toward the 110 direction (2° F), while it is near 15% for the substrate with 2° off miscut angle towards 010 direction (2° B), indicating the growth of InAs quantum wires on nominal and 2° F substrates and of InAs quantum dots on 2° B substrate. These island shapes are confirmed by morphological investigations performed by atomic force microscopy. The integrated PL intensity remains very strong at room temperature, as much as 36% of that at 8 K, indicating a strong spatial localization of the carriers in the InAs QIs grown on InP001