HOUET Thomas

The three main research objectives that contribute to the overall aim of this ITN are : 1 : Reconstruct the deep history of Europe’s cultural landscapes and corresponding changes in coupled human-nature interactions within subsequent human energy regimes and their transitions. 2 : Rethink the outcomes of human environmental interactions over the past three energy regimes (Fig. 1.1) on the present-day landscape in Europe, in order to inform future energy transitions from a long-term environmental and social perspective. 3 : Design landscape management strategies, i) provide scientific guidance on threats and opportunities for natural and cultural values of Europe’s landscapes, ii) define criteria for assisted restoration of ecosystems of former (abandoned) agricultural areas, and iii) to generate future scenarios for cultural landscape change, with integrated landscape, cultural heritage and biodiversity models, to inform current planning initiatives, e.g. for the transition to a low-carbon society.

The loss and habitat fragmentation are major threats to biodiversity and, incidentally, for the stability and existence of human society. The domination of nature by modern western societies is expressed by the transformation and simplification of landscape matrix which can cause disruptions in processes and degradation of ecosystem services. In this context, protected areas have been designed as a cornerstone of the conservation of wildlife and flora but failed at the same time to consider the many cases of coexistence and co-evolution of humans and wildlife. In addition, these protective islands overshadow the ecological importance of infill matrices which are yet subservient, for example, to animal migrations, which provide major ecological functions. The conclusion therefore is that of a need to design new management approaches based on novel ways to perceive and to coexist with nature. The challenge is to better understand the causes and consequences of the transformations of the landscape, in particular seeking to reveal how ecological and social processes overlap and impact each other’s. This challenge is significant because of (i) the complex nature of the systems studied, (ii) uncertainties within it, and (iii) the complex set of scales and interdependencies. The challenge is to learn to manage the processes while considering the aforementioned elements rather than imposing standardized requirements (eg. maximum sustainable yield). Magnum is a science involved project that aims to address some of these issues from a case study that puts at its heart the fieldwork, interdisciplinarity, collaboration, and modeling.

Ce projet a pour objectif de disposer d’outils permettant de caractériser le milieu urbain afin d’en étudier l’évolution et l’impact induit sur son environnement. Ces outils (base de données morpho-spectrales, algorithmes de détection de changement, fusion HS+Pan pour tirer profit de la diversité spectrale des images HS, tout en atteignant une résolution spatiale satisfaisante) nous permettent de préciser les besoins, d’exploiter le potentiel de Hypxim, tout en affinant les spécifications pour une telle mission.