Vincent Hély is defending his PhD thesis "Synthetic assessment of territorial sustainability. Strengths and weaknesses of modeling in the decision-making process" on November 22th 2017 in Besançon.

Category: Dissertation Defence

Vincent Hély is defending his PhD thesis "Synthetic assessment of territorial sustainability. Strengths and weaknesses of modeling in the decision-making process" on November 22th 2017 in Besançon.

The defense will take place at the "Salon Préclin" (18, rue Chifflet, UFR SLHS). This work was directed by Jean-Philippe Antoni.

Defense jury

Alain L'HOSTIS, Researcher at the French Institute of Science and Technology for Transport, Development and Networks (Ifsttar)

Jean-Pierre NICOLAS, Researcher at the LAET / ENTPE University of Lyon

Pierre FRANKHAUSER, Professor at the University of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté,

Damien VERRY Projet manager at the CEREMA

 

Abstract

This thesis is based on the challenges of assessing the impacts of urban planning decisions in the light of the imperatives of sustainable development. Beyond the vagueness often emerges from this concept, it is here to conduct a reflection on a balance to be found between the three pillars identified about sustainable development: economic, social and environmental. The aim is to consider how to assess the impacts of development policies in each of these three pillars and what conclusions should be drawn from them? The aim here is to provide answers by assessing the performance of the territories studied in these three pillars of sustainable development. For this purpose, the work is based on simulation models (here the MobiSim model developed within Laboratoire ThéMA) and on the production of synthetic indicators allowing a readable analysis and evaluation of the space. The combination of these synthetic indicators makes it possible to visualize and analyze the sustainability of the territory studied and to deduce the measures to be implemented with a view to ensuring a sustainable development policy. It is a question of putting the methodology and the results obtained into perspective in a global vision, seeking to establish by the balance between the three pillars a harmony which allows to satisfy the objectives of a policy guided by the imperatives linked to the concept of inherited from the Bruntland report. A critical approach to this concept and an analysis of the sets of actors of a territory are here conduits in order to be able to implement the scientific research work within a decision-making process. The challenge is to allow the results of research based on power modeling tools to find a more concrete and operational problem.