The tranverse research axe Environment, resource and risk management

Contact : laurent.lacaze@imft.fr

This transversal axis concerns more than twenty researchers and faculty members of the IMFT, divided into four of the research groups and attached to the two doctoral schools associated with the laboratory: SDU2E (Sciences of the Universe, Environment and Space) and MEGEP (Mechanics, Energetics, Civil and Chemical Engineering ). Our investigations concern both continental zone (river flows, modelling and management of hydraulic structures, watersheds, underground flows, aquifers) and the atmosphere-ocean system (stratified and/or rotating environments), through the coastal interface (morpho-dynamics of the swash zone and coastal profiles).

In these studies, we find an important component dedicated to sediment transport, and at all scales, as well as issues related to gravity flows and soil and groundwater pollution.

The first objective of the axis is to ensure an internal scientific animation around these studies:

• Organization of seminars
• Formation of working groups around four unifying themes: sediment transport, flows in stratified media, porous-external flow coupling and renewable energies.

A restitution of these working groups will be made at the axis level.

A second objective is to promote the skills and activities of the axis towards partners in the form of doctoral or post-doctoral training. These training actions can be combined with courses, numerical simulations and experiments which will therefore be carried out, in a workshop or summer school format depending on the means available.

This external communication of the axis includes an active participation in scientific mediation actions (Science Festival, reception of schoolchildren …).

The third objective of this axis is to improve the visibility of the IMFT towards institutional, academic and private partners.

The IMFT as a whole is thus represented by the axis within the UPEE cluster (Universe, Planet, Space, Environment), linked to the OMP (Observatory of Midi-Pyrénées). This representation includes participation in scientific and steering committees but also a better integration in the activities carried out by the UPEE cluster, such as the cluster’s Transversal Actions and submitted projects (EUR TESS project “Toulouse Graduate School of Earth and Space Sciences” for example). The axis represents IMFT in local structures such as the GIS water, or towards partners such as the CNRM (National Meteorological Research Centre) or the CERFACS (European Center for Research and Advanced Training in Scientific Computing). The axis is a privileged place of communication for the OFB (French Biodiversity Office), whose staff is attached to the H20 group, but whose activities are developed in interaction with other groups of IMFT within the Eco-Hydraulics cluster. As far as private partners are concerned, the axis will organize meeting days with the many companies (EDF, VEOLIA, …) in order to present the activities and skills of IMFT around environmental issues and to better understand the expectations of these companies in order to tie partnerships.