SWOT: Surface Water & Ocean Topography – Working group on spatial hydrology – INRAE : recherches pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement

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SWOT: Surface Water & Ocean Topography – Working group on spatial hydrology

The SWOT satellite was launched in December 2022 as part of a Franco-American CNES-NASA mission, with support from the UK and Canadian space agencies. The budget of close to USD 1 billion with PIA also provides for the preparation of products to exploit the satellite data collected, on which CNES and NASA had been actively working well in advance. Presented as revolutionary with a brand new technology, SWOT offers almost complete coverage of the globe outside the poles: “mesoscale” for the oceans, but above all for continental hydrology (rivers and lakes). Certain rivers have been selected for specific studies.

A working group on space hydrology led by IOWater was set up in 2014, bringing together several partners, French research and institutional players, as well as technical and operational ones: AFD, CNES, IRD, INRAE, CNR, CLS, as well as the company BRL Ingénierie on the hydrology and hydraulics aspects. Various activities were carried out with this consortium around the International Commission for the Congo-Oubangui-Sangha Basin (CICOS, created in 1999).

The aim was to provide spatio-temporal variations in the water levels of major rivers, lakes and streams, and in the flows of major rivers and ocean levels by 2022. This spatial altimetry data opens up a wide range of prospects, both for scientific research and for the operational management of water resources, particularly for major transboundary rivers.

INRAE, in particular G-Eau, with work and numerous publications recognised by the international community, has been a member of the project’s international scientific team since 2014, working mainly on hydrological and hydraulic aspects. On 22 July 2019 the signing of an INRAE/CNES agreement had enabled their skills to be synergised in the service of the SDGs (Adaptation of agriculture and the environment to climate change).

Work began on the Senegal River basin with the OMVS and continued on the Niger River basin in collaboration with the ABN (see brochure from the Working Group on Spatial Hydrology).

The Congo River was chosen as the experimental river mainly because of its flow: the 2nd largest in the world after the Amazon, its size: 4,700 km, the various issues: river transport, irrigation, drinking water, hydroelectricity, as well as its international and cross-border nature (its catchment area crosses 7 countries).

With Pierre-Olivier MALATERRE, the GHOSTE team at G-EAU is reconstructing river flows from data supplied by the satellite.

They are testing their algorithm on around fifty rivers around the world.

All the data will be regularly posted online on Theia-land’s Hydroweb site.

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International project expertise

CoForMO project: feasibility study for the use of a mobile data collection and centralisation tool

AFD was asked to support the Communauté Forestière du Moyen-Ouémé (CoForMO) in Benin on a project financed by the French Global Environment Facility (FGEF) to assess the relevance and feasibility of using mobile data collection and centralization tools to improve the monitoring system.

As part of this project, based on the CoForMO inventories, the Laboratoire d’Études Biologiques (LEB) and the Institut National de Recherche Agronomique du Bénin (INRAB) need to acquire and visualise data for their fieldwork. The data to be collected includes

the geographical location of the family farms surveyed in the agroforestry series of the forest under management ;
the contact details and other characteristics of the farmer1 and the landowner of the plots surveyed;
the permanent plots where annual measurements are to be taken;
transhumance corridors and parking areas marked out in each forest;
the boundaries of natural areas of exceptional biodiversity for the design of integral protection zones;
the boundaries of full plantations in degraded areas of the forest.

In order to be analysed optimally, this information collected in the field should be regularly integrated into a central server equipped with technologies capable of disseminating data flows so that all the partners work on the same reference systems.

Given the specific nature of the data to be collected (mainly cartographic, quantitative, environmental, longitudinal, etc.), the digital tool had to facilitate input adapted to the monitoring protocol and be synchronisable with a central system, as well as being financially accessible. During the support mission for the Mé REDD+ project in Côte d’Ivoire (2016-2019), AFD had previously successfully tested the GeoPoppy tool, a field notebook and map server designed by Julien Ancelin.

For the CoForMO in Benin, Julien Ancelin (DSLP, INRAE) was commissioned by Claire Zanuso (AFD, dpt EVA) with the financial support of the FGEF and the World Bank’s DAEM (Development of Access to Modern Energy) platform.

Her mission took place from 5 to 12 January 2019.

Its aim was to study the feasibility of setting up such a tool in the field.

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International project expertise

Support to the development of the European Soil Condition Assessment – Soil erosion

Support for the development of the European Soil Assessment – Soil erosion

The study “Support for the development of the European Soil Condition Assessment” was dedicated to the impact of soil erosion on human activities and ecosystems. It took the form of a document entitled “Key facts on the role, impact and extent of soil erosion”, listing key – and scientifically validated – facts on soil erosion in Europe. It was produced for the European Environment Agency (EEA). The research was carried out for the European continent, then sequentially for each of the countries of the European Union, with bibliographic references collected using Web of Science and for the publication period 2019-2023.

The study informs that currently, around 25% of land in the European Union has soil erosion rates above the recommended sustainable threshold and more than 6% of agricultural land suffers from severe erosion. The estimated long-term average erosion rate fell by 0.4% between 2010 and 2016. This decrease of 0.4% in 6 years is much lower than the estimated decrease for the period 2000-2010 (9%). This means that efforts to mitigate soil erosion need to be stepped up with more environmentally-friendly measures, and that areas at high risk of erosion need to be better targeted.

Depending on the climate change scenario, an increase of 13% to 22% in the average rate of soil erosion in the EU is estimated, from 3.1 t/ha/yr in 2016 to around 3.6 t/ha/yr. Effective mitigation of future soil loss therefore requires conservation policy measures on at least 50% of agricultural land with erosion rates above 5 t/ha/yr.

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GoLFor-DEEPN: Local Forest Governance

Development, Environment and Political Economy in Nepal

The GoLFor-DEEPN* project aims to assess the effects of the decentralisation of forest management from the Forest Department to the local level in Nepal on three points: (1) forest cover, (2) collective action within villages and (3) the functioning of the local political system. After decades of deforestation for farming and firewood, forest cover has improved slightly over the last 20 years. No large-scale study has analysed the precise causes, let alone the consequences.

François Libois, from the Paris School of Economics, coordinated the interdisciplinary GoLFor-DEEPN project, a research programme carried out in collaboration with the CNRS, and based on three axes: human geography led by Olivia Aubriot (CNRS, CESAH), remote sensing led by Nicolas Delbart (U Paris- Cité) and economics led by François Libois (INRAE, PSE). This project was allocated €189k by the ANR, and in the initial period, 2018-2021, €50k by UK AID as part of the ‘Economic Development and Institutions’ programme.

The aim was to quantify the contribution made by the groups to stabilising Nepal’s forest cover, to highlight the underlying mechanisms and to discuss the expected distributional effects in terms of living standards in the villages and local authorities. The GoLFor-DEEPN project is structured around five testable hypotheses:

a) Does giving forest management back to its users increase forest cover?

b) Does the creation of groups have negative effects on adjacent areas? Does it increase the likelihood of the emergence of collective action in neighbouring forests and villages?

c) Do the restrictions on use imposed by user groups increase the adoption of alternative energies and new technologies among villagers living in the vicinity of areas newly managed at local level?

d) Is the type of public goods provided a function of inequalities within groups and villages?

e) Can local management of a resource, in a system where the executive committee is elected, be seen as a form of proto-democracy that helps to select leaders in higher-level elections?

The initial results show that community forestry has indeed contributed to the afforestation of high-altitude areas of Nepal and discuss the mechanisms behind their action: closing forests to grazing, planting but also, and above all, easier access to wood substitutes as energy for cooking.

In addition to these scientific results, extensive data collection has been carried out on more than 3,000 forest user groups, providing detailed, digitised mapping that did not previously exist.

To find out more: the Paris School of Economics Policy Brief, in partnership with INRAE

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International project expertise

P3A: Support Programme for the Implementation of the Association Agreement

Capacity-building implementation of the forestry strategy
by the DFG

In 2004, the European Commission launched a twinning initiative aimed at helping certain independent states in Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean region, such as Algeria, which has an estimated forest heritage of 4,100,000 ha, including 1,700,000 ha of forest. But although this heritage offers society an extraordinary diversity of goods and services, in some places it is being degraded by ever-increasing human pressures, combined with the effects of climate change. As part of its mission to preserve, promote and enhance this rich heritage, the Direction Générale des Forêts (DGF) is firmly committed to a sustainable development approach in line with the UN’s 2030 Agenda. The objectives of the National Forestry Strategy for 2035 have been defined with a view to meeting the country’s environmental, social and economic needs.

As an instrument of administrative cooperation, institutional twinning gives beneficiary countries access to the expertise of EU member states in a variety of fields. Of the 6 agreements between France and Algeria, this twinning contract No. DZ 17 ENI AG 01 19, signed on 18 February 2020 and worth €1,370k, is part of the P3A (Programme d’Appui à la mise en oeuvre de l’Accord d’Association) between Algeria and the European Union. A Franco-Italian consortium was set up in conjunction with the Plant Protection and Technical Control Department (DPVCT) of the Algerian Ministry of Agriculture (MADR), the French Ministry of Agriculture and Food (MASA), the Italian Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MiPAAFT) and the Swedish Forestry Agency (Skogsstyrelsen). A number of Algerian scientific and technical institutes and organisations, including INRAA, were also involved.

Christian Dupraz, an agronomist specialising in temperate agroforestry systems at UMR ABsys and President of IUAF, was involved in the project. The aim is to support the Algerian forestry sector by providing the DGF with technical support to strengthen its organisational and operational capacities. This will enable it to effectively implement its National Forestry Strategy as set out in its leaflet. The project, mobilising 50 European experts who will carry out 96 expert missions, comprises 4 components: (1) definition and implementation of a strategy to enhance the value of forest heritage and products, (2) strengthening the capacities of the Forestry Administration in terms of strategic steering and operational efficiency, (3) definition and implementation of a policy for the continuous improvement of skills and (4) improving the implementation of strategic frameworks and the management of international conventions.

Once these 4 aspects had been completed, a strategy for developing forest heritage and products was defined, promoted and disseminated.

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World Bank study on the MRV (Monitoring-Reporting-Verification) method for livestock farming

Case studies and regional workshops

In 2020, the World Bank commissioned INRAE to carry out a study entitled “MRV study for a reduction in GHG emissions from livestock farming in conjunction with a reduction in deforestation”. The study is based on the hypothesis that promoting certain intensive livestock farming practices can reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and at the same time reduce demand for land, provided that measures are implemented to protect forests or develop integrated systems such as agroforestry or mixed crop-livestock systems. The central theme of the study is therefore the development of methods for monitoring, reporting and verifying GHG emissions, analysing these emissions and changes in deforestation, forest degradation or land use. The study carried out by the INRAE-CIRAD consortium was intended to lay the conceptual foundations of this MRV method, which in an operational phase will have to be submitted to a certification structure for approval. Three case studies representing a diversity of production systems, intensification potential, land use change dynamics and public policy environment were selected in Brazil, Senegal and Vietnam. For these 3 case studies, webinars and the mobilisation of regional experts and stakeholders were discussed and documented.

After various discussions and feedback from the BM project team, the method proposed focused on net emissions (in CO2 equivalent) during the operational phase of a climate project financing livestock farming. Clarification of the scope of the method, which must be based on the scale of a country or region. This will enable the method to address the entire livestock sector, including the specific characteristics and value chains of the regions/countries under consideration. In this case, an operational MRV method could be used to support WB green finance projects.

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International project expertise

COSTEA – REUT: Reuse of treated wastewater

The Reuse of Treated Wastewater (RWW) encompasses a variety of projects that are raising great hopes in the countries of the South, especially in agriculture. At the beginning of 2021, the IME (Institut méditerranéen de l’Eau) initiated international coordination of the project at six sites: Algeria, Bolivia, Morocco, Palestine, Senegal and Tunisia. Financed by the RMC Agency and AFD as part of its Adapt’ Action programme, the project was launched in January 2019 for a period of 12 months and involves the Société du Canal de Provence (SCP) and the Société des Eaux de Marseille (SEM) with the support of various local organisations.

In Tunisia, while the GDAs, supervised by the local DGGREE, were launching a drive to modernise their irrigated areas, REUT feasibility studies involving full multi-factor diagnostics and the deployment of pilot projects were being carried out on behalf of the IME, under the supervision of the Office national de l’assainissement de Tunisie (ONAS), for which REUT is one of its 6 major R&D themes.

Several visits led to the selection of the Sousse-sud and Mahdia sites for the implementation of an integrated pilot scheme for agricultural wastewater treatment.

After the financial package, it includes: (1) the design of the plot irrigation system; (2) agronomic expertise and choice of crops; (3) execution studies for all the hydraulic works; and (4) the social water management scheme.

This project, which is being carried out in consultation with the sanitation and agricultural sectors, aims to produce results that can be used to advance the REUSE sector in Tunisia as a whole. In 2021, most of the projects will take place in Morocco, in rural areas, and will target access to drinking water. As for the projects funded in Lebanon, Palestine and Tunisia, they are almost all long-term decentralised cooperation projects involving exchanges of knowledge and skills, as is the case with some French associations.

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