TP 4 : RESILIENCE
Duration: 120 months
Leader: Ifremer
Key partners: University of Réunion, University of Mayotte, IRD
BRIDGES-RESILIENCE‘s objective is to provide knowledge for sustainable and fair spatialised management of coastal resources. This mainly involves the artisanal and subsistence fishing socio-ecosystems of the South-West Indian Ocean. The project will use a transdisciplinary, living-lab territorial approach to untangle the cause-and-effect relationships that underpin the sustainability of Nature’s Contributions to People (NCP’s) thanks to a socio-ecosystemic management approach.
The project aims to answer the following scientific questions:
- How does spatially explicit management of coastal and marine resources influence ecosystems functioning?
- What is the role of fishing play in delivering Nature’s Contributions to People?
- What is the impact of climate change on fisheries and to what extent spatially explicit management of marine resources can help mitigate these impacts?
BRIDGES-RESILIENCE‘s priority goals are to:
- Understand the complex interactions between fishing activities and ecosystems functioning to identify Area-Based Management Tools (ABMTs) that can simultaneously support sustainable fishing practices, biodiversity conservation, and socio-ecological resilience.
- Evaluate the role of fisheries and aquaculture in the sustainability of ‘Blue Foods’ for the South-West Indian Ocean’s coastal communities.
- Assess the impact of climate change on coastal fisheries.
- Analyse fishers’ adaptive strategies in response to ABMTs and assess their long-term implications for human well-being.
- Integrate modelling tools and participatory workshops to evaluate governance intervention scenarios and, explore potential trajectories for socio-ecological systems.
BRIDGES-RESILIENCE applies a transdisciplinary ‘living-lab’ approach to bridge the gap between socio-ecological research and sustainability science. Scenario assessments will be carried out along with governance experiments aimed at developing sustainable development pathways. The project will work with local stakeholders to implement and test transformative initiatives capable of responding to local challenges while also contributing to sustainability goals.
BRIDGES-RESILIENCE works in a context of limited information available on processes that can lead to sustainable use of coastal and marine resources, which represent a significant challenge in terms of project management.
The project’s work is based on (among other elements) :
- The CORECRABE project, to carry out a transdisciplinary evaluation of mangrove crab fisheries in Madagascar
- The MANFAD project, to develop a tool to help manage Fish Aggregating Devices (FADs)
- The BioEOS project, to develop observation tools for the characterisation of coastal biodiversity’s spatio-temporal dynamics
- The Afrimaqua international research network, to promote the development of sustainable, nutrition-sensitive marine aquaculture in Africa. The end goal is to contribute to food and nutritional security, help reduce poverty and generate income
- The MIKAROKA International Joint Laboratory (LMI, IRD) in Madagascar. This involves the Fisheries and Marine Sciences Institute (IH.SM) in Toliara, the National Centre for Oceanographic Research (CNRO) in Nosy-Be and, more recently, the University of Antsiranana
- The African Interdisciplinary Laboratory in Sustainable Nutrition-Sensitive Marine Aquaculture (LIMAQUA) International Joint Laboratory (LMI, IRD) in Southern Africa jointly managed by the Department of Environment, Forestry & Fisheries (DEFF) and the MARBEC joint research unit.
Type of data involved: biological, ecological and fisheries assessments, contribution of fisheries to nutrition, socio-economic descriptors, institutional components, past climate impacts, current and projected climatic and oceanographic conditions, future risks.
- Socio-economic surveys of coastal and marine resource management stakeholders such as fishermen, administrators, etc.
- Meetings and workshop days to analyse data and write articles.
- Acculturation and awareness-raising sessions at the study sites to involve local stakeholders.
- Annual BRIDGES and BRIDGES-RESILIENCE days.
2026 :
- Characterization of challenges and stakes at each site
- Start of monitoring
2028 :
- Future impacts of climate change on artisanal fisheries
2030 :
- Scenario workshops
- Recommendations and testing of spatialized management measures
2034 :
- Evaluation and experimentation
Quentin SCHULL (Ifremer)
Quentin Schull co-directs BRIDGES-RESILIENCE. He is a researcher at the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Seas (Ifremer) MARBEC unit. He is a specialist in evolutionary ecophysiology and uses multidisciplinary approaches ranging from the genome to the organism which are also at the intersection between individuals, populations and environments, the aim being to study these subjects’ sensitivity and robustness in a context of global change. His work aims to dissociate the effects of natural and anthropogenic constraints while promoting the coexistence of man and nature to ensure the sustainability of the marine socio-ecosystem and, more broadly, to achieve sustainable management of resources. Over the last 12 years, his research has combined experimental approaches under controlled conditions with field experiments and in situ monitoring, working in a variety of ecosystems – from the tropics of the South-West Indian Ocean, French Polynesia and Indonesia to more temperate zones of the Mediterranean Sea and the sub-Antarctic’s polar regions. The MARBEC research unit focuses on societal issues related to marine biodiversity and its uses. The unit has two more specific aims, firstly to develop tools for conserving biodiversity and anticipating emerging risks and secondly to promote sustainable marine fishing and aquaculture.
Stéphanie D’AGATA (IRD)
Stéphanie D’Agata is the co-director of BRIDGES-RESILIENCE. She is also a researcher at the IRD’s ENTROPIE laboratory, working at the European Institute for Marine Studies (IUEM) in Plouzané, France. For the past 13 years, Stéphanie’s research has concentrated on human-environment interactions in coastal socio-ecosystems, the overall aim being to identify effective solutions to help preserve these ecosystems, ensuring their sustainability and promoting the well-being of inhabitants. Her work is interdisciplinary in its approach, combining community and functional ecology, conservation biology, biogeography, fisheries science and human ecology to characterise human-environment interactions in coastal ecosystems, with particular focus on artisanal or subsistence fisheries in Madagascar. This approach studies how ecological and socio-economic scales are interwoven to enhance understanding of socio-ecological systems. In more practical terms she integrates empirical data from ecological, environmental, fisheries and socio-economic observations that are combined with statistical modelling tools to evaluate the direct and indirect associations between the multi-scale determinants of the dynamics of coastal socio-ecosystems. She belongs to the ENTROPIE research team, based on Réunion Island and in New Caledonia. Among other subjects, this unit’s work focuses on studies of the spatial and temporal dynamics of biodiversity patterns and the sustainable conservation of marine biodiversity in Indo-Pacific socio-ecological systems.
Type of data involved: biological, ecological and fisheries assessments, contribution of fisheries to nutrition, socio-economic descriptors, institutional components, past climate impacts, current and projected climatic and oceanographic conditions, future risks.