Yohan Sahraoui is defending his PhD thesis on December the 1st 2016 in Besançon.

The defense will take place at UFR SLHSn rue Chifflet at Besançon on December the 1st 2016 at 14H30. This work was co-directed by Jean-Christophe Foltête and Céline Clauzel.

Defense jury

Marc ANTROP, Professor at the University of Gand,

Jacques BAUDRY, Research Director at the INRA,

Céline CLAUZEL, Associate Professor at the University Paris-Diderot,

Marianne COHEN, Professor at the University Paris-Sorbonne,

Jean-Christophe FOLTÊTE, Professor at the University of Franche-Comté,

Thomas HOUET, Associate researcher at the CNRS,

Abstract

Landscape is both a backdrop to the lives of human populations and a medium for the life cycle of animal species. Landscape changes induced by land-use and land-cover dynamics affect both these dimensions, the one aesthetic, and the other ecological. Because these rationales are usually studied within different disciplines, little research has been done into how the two clash or combine as and when landscape structures change. This work seeks therefore to model the spatial co-evolution of the aesthetic and ecological functions of landscape retrospectively using spatial metrics based on land-cover data. It focuses on changes in the urban fringes of two French cities (Paris and Besançon) over the last 30 years.

The approach attempts first to use land-cover data to model (1) the landscape preferences of a set of individuals and (2) the ecological connectivity of a set of animal species. Drawing on both multivariate statistical analysis and spatial analysis, the core of this work consists in investigating how the two functions have evolved in convergent or divergent ways over time. The results provide fresh insight into the relationship between landscape aesthetics and landscape ecology and raise questions about the value of spatial modelling for a landscape management approach that endeavours to reconcile the preservation of residents’ living environments and the conservation of biodiversity.

 Justin Emery is defending his PhD thesis "The City Under Electrodes : from the observation to the evaluation of traffic air pollution towards a multi-agent simulation of urban road traffic" on November 17th 2016 in Dijon.

The defense will take place at "Maison des Sciences de l’Homme de Dijon" (6 esplanade Erasme, 21000 DIJON). This work was co-directed by Thomas Thévenin and Nadège Martiny.

Defense jury

BADARIOTTI Dominique, Professor at the University of Strasbourg

JOSSELIN Didier, Research Director at the CNRS, ESPACE

MARILLEAU Nicolas, Research Engineer at the IRD-UMMISCO, UPMC

MARTINY Nadège, Associate Professor at the University of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté

SANDERS Lena, Research Director at the CNRS, Géographie-Cités

THEVENIN Thomas, Professor at the University of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté

Abstract

Based on surveys, traffic is constructed from assumptions about the relationship between origins and destinations. In order to rebuild a road traffic wich would be closer to observation and on a wider set of road sections, it appears interesting to use counting data from urban sensors : this is our starting point of view. The insertion of these in-situ dataset in the road traffic measurement provides the opportunity to experience the potential of sensors to estimate Traffic Air Pollution (TAP) levels at the intraurban scale. However, this requires to change the nature of these estimation, here through the construction of a model of multi-agents simulation, in order to extract more information on the road traffic. More generally, this work can be seen as a a knowledge building approach on TAP emisssions which is discussed throughout this work.

The implementation of the SCAUP (multi-agent simulation from Urban sensors for traffic air pollution) approach was developped in three stages: 1. Focusing on the quantification of road traffic devices through urban sensors; 2. Proposing a modeling approach for road traffic data simulation ; 3. Using as a reference the national framework used by AASQA to calculate RTA emissions. All is integrated within a technical matrix that forms the spine of the manuscript through three interrelated systems: quantification, modeling and evaluation. This work is part of an experimental approach dedicated to the calculation of TAP emissions based on traffic simulations. Sponsored by the ATMOSF’AIR BOURGOGNE local AASQA, this work could also be used in an operational mode for these organizations in charge of the air quality monitoring. At a time when the big data enters into new questions about the ability of researchers to extract knowledge, we propose a geographical approach that enables to replace the data in the center of an original road traffic simulation approach (data- driven).

An Interdisciplinary Approach to Residential Choice in its Social Context

This book proposes, from a cross-disciplinary perspective, an original reading of current work on residential choice and the decisions associated with it. Geographers, social-psychologists, economists, sociologists, neurologists and linguists have worked together in the context of collective research into evaluation, choice and decision-making in the use of urban and periurban spaces. A synthetic outlook has been constructed from these complimentary scientific references. The book, which is designed as a handbook, also provides the opportunity to set out the different approaches to deal with the models which have been developed in this field.

http://www.springer.com/us/book/9783658155414#aboutAuthors

About the authors:

Pierre Frankhauser has a doctoral degree in theoretical physics and in geography. He is full professor of geography at the University of Franche-Comté, Besançon.

Dominique Ansel has a doctoral degree in psychology. He is associate professor at the University of Franche-Comté, Besançon.