Manon KOHLER

 Manon KOHLER

Associate Researcher
+33 (0)3 81 66 54 27
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Manon Kohler is a CNRS researcher working at the ThéMA (Théoriser et Modéliser pour Aménager) laboratory of the CNRS-Université de Franche-Comté.

 She is particularly interested in human biometeorology and heat adaptation of societies. She appreciates to discover new cutlures, hiking in high and medium range mountains, traditional artcrafts, photography and used to be beekeeper in past times.

 

 

Keywords: urban climate, human biometeorology, geography, sustainable urban form and spatial analysis, overheating adaptation.

Manon graduated her PhD in Physical Geography at the University of Strasbourg in 2015 (UMR CNRS LIVE), where she studied the "added value of urbanised regional atmospheric numerical models for the assessment of the impact of urban planning policies on the energy demand of buildings and the urban climate". She participated to the ANR Trame Verte Urbaine 2009-2012, and continued her research on sustainable urban forms during a post-doctoral experience at the Leibniz Institute IOER (risk team FB-R, Dresden, Germany) in collaboration with Dr. Martina Artmann (i.e., smart green cities) and then joined the University of Singapore and the multi-institutional ETH-Z/NUS/MIT/TUM/A*Star initiative Cooling Singapore (2017-2020).


There, she led several fixed and mobile human biometeorological observation campaigns aimed at diagnosing the outdoor thermal comfort/stress of pedestrians in Singapore's neighbourhoods in order to integrate climate-smart designs in urban planning documents. She worked in parallel on the Coolbit project (with Dr Negin Nazarian, UNSW & A/P Jason Lee, NUS) to develop a method to personalise the diagnosis of thermal comfort/stress at the individual level using smartwatches to promote inclusive healthy cities.

Since returning to France, Manon Kohler's research interests have ranged from methodological issues, such as the reliability of meteorological and human heat stress measurements in cities, to more fundamental action-oriented questions concerning the adaptation strategies of individuals and territories to overheating (e.g. additional anthropic pressure on water resources due to bathing activities during heat waves), whether the territories are urban or rural.

 

- co-direction of the French CNRS SHS research network on Urban Climate (co-dir.: M. Hendel, LIED Paris & A. Rodler CEREMA Nantes)

 

Ongoing project:

coming soon: 2025-2027 ANER region Capbiomet: Diagnosis of heat stress among the inhabitants of Burgundy-Franche Comté and their natural remote refuge areas (50kE, lead: M. Kohler)

2024 - present: Université de Strasbourg project Changement climatique Alsace-Vosges- traitement de données et synthèse (lead: MC Pierret, PR ITES, FERED de l'Université de Strasbourg et CNRS)

2023-2024 CNRS-Eurométropole de Strasbourg VESPAI project (lead: N. Blond, LIVE; collab. OctopusLab) diagnosis of the vulnerability of schools to heatwave in the Eurometropolis territory (indoor heat stress) - co-direction of the Master thesis of Laure Chambraud.

2022-2023 CNRS-Eurométropole de Strasbourg AMBRES project (lead: M. Mendez OctopusLab + N. Blond, LIVE) Approche multicritères pour un bâtiment résilient et sain

 

Others internal projects (ongoing):

- River&bathing: identifying the added-pressure on natural water resources due to maladaptation to overheating in the Alsace-Bade-Württemberg region.

- Les Weihermattens: added-value of small humid areas ( 1 ha) for small towns' potential cooling during heatwaves.

 

 Other activites:

- member of the Zone Atelier Environnementale Urbaine (ZAEU), team Energy, Air Pollution, Climate

- member of the scientific panel of experts of the regional IPCC GREBE-Climat (Franche-Comté/Burgundy)

- reviewer for Urban Climate (3), Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (2), Urban Forestry & Urban greening (1), Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (1), Buildings (1), La Météorologie(1), International Journal of Biometeorology (1).

 

Teaching:

- Since 2020: Bachelor level at the University of Strasbourg: urban planning and risk related to extreme heat in urbanized regions (plenary + practices courses, about 25 hours/yr.)