M2 Climate, Land Use and Ecosystem Services

The course will be divided into four major parts: Fundamentals of soil organic matter dynamics and stabilization processes in soils. C sequestration in soils. Modeling C and N dynamics. Contribution of soil organic matter to soil functions and ecosystem services. Indicators and tools for predicting soil organic matter related services. Managing soil organic matter: land use, cropping systems and practices (tillage, agroforestry, cover crops, organic wastes, irrigation..). Soil C survey and soil C public policies: measurements tools, databases and monitoring systems; IPCC and national assessments; national and European incentives regarding soils and soil C. The course will comprise lectures as well as practical exercises (a practical modeling session is scheduled). A group exercise is scheduled in which students will assess the impact of a change in management on soil organic matter and ecosystem services, including mitigation of climate change.

Soil organic matter has a pivotal role in soils and terrestrial ecosystem, it is a major component of soil fertility, soil structure and water holding capacity, it is the energy resource of soil organisms and thus sustains biodiversity, buffers contaminants and it is a major reservoir of carbon. It is thus at the crossroads of societal challenges: maintaining food security, mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, adapting to climate changes, recycling organic wastes and protecting biodiversity.
This course aims to provide knowledge concerning soil organic matter, its functions and contributions to ecosystem services, its dynamics at different time scales and variations under management practices. It aims to provide tools to survey and manage soil organic matter and to increase C storage in soils.

Basics in soil science (including biogeochemistry), agronomy, environmental sciences.

Janvier.

PARIS

This course aims to provide knowledge concerning the specificities of urban and peri-urban agriculture, by dealing with the following topics: (i) Diversity of forms (e.g., market gardening, Z-farming), (ii) multifunctionality (e.g., food supply, waste recycling, landscape design) and sustainability of urban and peri-urban agriculture, and (iii) Public policies, local governance and regulations for (peri-)urban agriculture conservation and development. The course will be divided in four major parts: (i) Characteristics of urban and peri-urban ecosystems in term of climate and pollution, and their link with plant productivity, (ii) Definition of the urban agriculture and its diversity of forms, (iii) Multifonctionality and ecosystem services provided by urban agriculture, and (iv) Role of public policies and local governance : use conflicts, laws and regulations, planning tools and documents. The course will be performed by lecturers and field visits.

With the increase of world demography and the need to concentrate human activities, urban areas have largely increased since the pre-industrial era, and a large number of megacities (> 10 million inhabitants) exists nowadays. This tendency will rise during the next years, and it is estimated that 1.2 million km² of (pseudo-)natural lands will be converted in urban areas in 2030, conversion that concerns especially arable lands. This decrease of arable lands is not consistent with the increase in food demand. Therefore, strategies must be developed in order to protect existing arable lands in the vicinity of cities (through public policies and local governance strategies) and new forms of agricultural systems have to emerge within the urban areas, accounting for the constraints of urban and peri-urban environments (e.g., climate, pollution, available space, social demand, governance).

Janvier.

PARIS

1 – An overview of radiative processes affective global climate. Links with past climates.
2 – From radiative to radiative-convective equilibrium: the role of stratification in climate energetics.
3 – The different scales of atmospheric dynamics: application to cloud generation.
4 – Climate stability and climate feedbacks: the role of small-scale processes.
5 – Conclusion: a first approach of model validity at different prediction ranges.

Septembre - Octobre - Novembre - Décembre.

PARIS

Erwan Personne (APT), Patrick Stella (APT), Jean-François Castell (APT) Benjamin Loubet (INRA).

Evaluation/assignment Report concerning directed work about Data analysis of plant-Atmosphere Interactions/fluxes - Bibliographic summary - Attendance and participation to the course will also be accounted for the final grading.

-Objectives:
Understanding, modelling, measuring the interactions between the biosphere and atmosphere at fine scale (plants, leaf, …scales).
Those interactions are key parameters to understand of the biosphere and (agro) ecosystems functioning, and to as.

Basic knowledge in bioclimatology and data processing.

* Monteith, J.L., 2008. Principles of environmental physics, 3rd ed. ed. Elsevier, Amsterdam?; Boston. * Jones, H.G., 2014. Plants and microclimate: a quantitative approach to environmental plant physiology, Third edition. ed. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge?; New York. * Guyot, G., 1998. Physics of the environment and climate, Wiley-Praxis series in atmospheric physics and climatology. Wiley, Chichester?; New York. * Garatt, J.R., 1992. The Atmospheric boundary Layer. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.

Septembre - Octobre.

PARIS

Objectives:
Know and understand the fundamental exchanges that take place at the land-atmosphere interface.
Know and understand the global cycle for water, carbon, nitrogen, phosphor at global scale, and the variables that influence their cycles.
Know and understand why terrestrial biosphere can influence the composition and circulation of the overlying air masses.

Curriculum:
The course will be divided in three major parts :
Fundamentals in the biogeochemical cycles and surface-atmosphere exchanges at global scale (15h)
Directed work concerning the analyses and discussions of results coming from simulations of global change model.
a more research-driven part that will make the best use of the science in progress to illustratewhat we know, what the unknowns are, what and where the uncertainties are, and what remains to be done concerning the biogeochemical cycles and the two ways interactions between biosphere and atmosphere [at global scale] (9h). This part will be done by experts in forms of conferences.

Atmospheric circulation, plant functioning (ecophysiology).

Septembre - Octobre - Novembre - Décembre.

PARIS

The course will be divided in four major parts: (i) Introduction to economy of the environment and its application to agricultural activities, in a perspective of GHG emissions (at the scale of the farm), (ii) Evaluation of public policies for reduction of GHG emissions at the continental/world scale, considering several activity sectors (including agriculture and forest) and land use change, (iii) Adaptation of productive ecosystem management (agriculture/forest) to climate change, and links with public policies for climate change mitigation, and (iv) Introduction to the specificities of urban ecosystems in terms of climate and pollution, and strategies for their regulation.

This course aims to provide knowledge on these non-technical subjects for which economical, social and political challenges are particularly developed. In addition, since terrestrial ecosystems (e.g., forests, crops, but also urban ecosystems) are both sinks and sources of greenhouse gases (GHG), they can held mitigation strategies for climate regulation, but have to adapt themselves to climate change.
More precisely, the course aims to: (i) Provide fundamental knowledge on biophysical processes involved in atmosphere-biosphere exchanges, and on the impacts of climate on ecosystem management, (ii) Show how these processes and their management can be included in economical approaches, and in the evaluation of mitigation strategies of climate change (iii) Show some stakeholder strategies in regards to these challenges and politics (biofuel, adaptation of forest and agricultural practices), and (iv) Show the role of the scientific community in public policies.

Basics in biosphere-atmosphere exchanges (environmental physics, plant ecophysiology).

Octobre - Novembre - Décembre.

PARIS

Julien Tournebize, INRAe Thierry Brunelle, CIRED/CIRAD Sophie Joimel, AgroParisTech.

Lectures in soil sciences, land-use economics, and ecological engineering. Group project on water quality remediation.

Curriculum:
- Introduction : conceptual framework to predict land-use and assess land-use change patterns (drivers, pressure, state, response).
- Soil science basics (6 h)
- Ecological engineering: application to the abatement of water pollution from cropland via changes in land management, land-use and the establishment of buffer zones (12h)
- Economic drivers of land-use changes: introduction to the different possible methodologies to simulate land use changes at the global scale: how the demand and production systems are modeled in the main economic models of land-use? What are the key socio-economic drivers of land-use? What are the main sources of uncertainties? Evolution of land-use modelling towards the global scale. Land use modelling in the Integrated Assessment Models (IAM): some examples of integrated modelling will be presented with a focus on the interactions between the biophysical and the socio-economic realms. Global scenarios of land-use: how are they built? What are their main assumptions? What conclusions can be drawn from them?.

Basics in land-use / climate interactions and agronomy.

IPCC reports on climate and land-use (www.ipcc.ch).

Novembre - Décembre.

PARIS

During this class, students will get: (i) an overview of relevant methodologies for research in agronomy for global issues with a focus on meta-analysis; (ii) an accurate representation of the major components of the global food system (this will be done through a group work session followed by a poster session with discussions); (iii) some insight into the past trends of some major drivers of the global food system (global crop production, harvested area and yields of major food crops); (iv) knowledge on major production systems worldwide, (v) knowledge about the relationship between organic agriculture and biodiversity, and (v) knowledge about nutrients flows linked to agricultural activities at the global scale. Major open global data sources will be presented, and two of them (FAOSTATS and the Global Yield Gap and Water Productivity Atlas) will be used during tutorial classes to perform some calculations and simple statistics analyses with the R software.

Agronomists, unlike economists or climatologists, have started to work at the global scale recently. Indeed, agronomists have a role to play to address global challenges within the context of a rapid growth of the global population and changing diets, and the need to decrease the environmental footprint of agriculture. In order to present the role that agronomists can play to tackle these global challenges, during this class, lectures and group work will revolve around one central question: “Doubling food production towards 2050?” This central question will be tackled from several viewpoints, highlighting past and current trends in major components and outcomes of the global food system (agricultural production, food loss and waste, food security) and methods used by agronomists to address these global issues.

Basic knowledge in agronomy and statistics.

Cassman K.G. (2012). What do we need to know about global food security? Global Food Security, 1(2), 81-82. Fischer et al. (2014). Crop yields and global food security: will yield increase continue to feed the world? Canberra: Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research. Available at: http://aciar.gov.au/publication/mn158 Godfray H.C. et al. (2010). Food security: the challenge of feeding 9 billion people. Science, 327(5967), 812-818. Grassini P. et al. (2013). Distinguishing between yield advances and yield plateaus in historical crop production trends. Nature. Communications

Septembre.

PARIS

Philippe Baveye, AgroParisTech; Matéo Cordier, UVSQ; Pauline Choquet & Victor Moinard, INRAE (EcoSys); Francesco Accatino (SAD APT, INRAE) ; Vincent Martinet (EcoPub, INRAE) ; Catherine Gomy, CG Conseil, consultante.

Introduction: conceptual frameworks to assess land-use and management Ecosystem services: insight from France to European-scale assessments(Francesco Accatino, 3h of lecture); topical questions on the concept of ecosystem services, and current challenges (Philippe Baveye, AgroParisTech; 3h lecture). Economic valuation of services (Vincent Martinet, INRAe; 3h lecture). Practical work on the monitoring of ecosystem services in the context of agricuture on the Saclay Plateau (Paris area; 6h). Landscape or 'territorial' metabolism: an industrial ecology approach underpinned by economic input-output analysis and material flow (Mateo Cordier, UVSQ, 12 h lecture + practical on a case-study). Life-cycle thinking and approaches to integrated environmental assessment: rationale and current use in the conctext of environmental management at product or organization level.

Land use and management serve multiple purposes and generate a host of impacts, whether negative or positive on the environment. Approaches that integrate across all of these aspects are necessary when it comes of evaluating and designing management strategies that align best with the imperative of sustainable development.
The course aims at raising students' awareness of three complementary approaches applicable to the management of ecosystems and of bio-based industry in general: the ecosystem services framework, and metabolism and life-cycle approaches. Course attendants will get to grips with the principles of these approaches, gain insight from their application to agricultural systems and bio-based value-chains, and gain practical know-how on how to apply them in 3 different case-studies.
They will become familiar with environmental management, the ISO 14 000 standards and the principles of their implementation in various decision-making contexts to improve the environmental performance of production systems or organizations.
The course will equip students with the tools and methods currently used in this process for the environmental assessment of products and services, and their eco-design.

Basic knowledge (at Bachelor's level) in ecology, biogeochemistry and agronomy.

Provided on the e-learning platform of course.

Octobre - Novembre - Décembre.

PARIS

Supervision: Alain Vidal, PhD, HDR, WBCSD and IUCN

Educational team Géraldine Abrami, PhD, IR, UMR G-EAU, Irstea, Montpellier Ana Nicod, MSc, Nestlé, Vevey (Switzerland) Fabrice de Clerck, PhD, Scientific Director, EAT, Stockholm (Sweden) Aline Mosnier, PhD, Scientific Director, FABLE, UN-SDSN, Montpellier.

Fundamentals on natural resources (planetary boundaries) (6h), food and nutrition security (6h) and interactions (3h) – 12h negotiation games to dive deeper into interactions between natural resources, food and nutrition security and poverty, based on real cases from the developing world : 6h of preparatory work, 6h of interactive games. Examples from cutting-egde research on sustainable intensification and climate-smart agriculture (6h)

21 hours of lecture and 6 hours of tutorial Video-conferences are utilized for the overseas lecturers.

Objectives:

To know and understand the global status of natural resources (planetary boundaries), food and nutrition security and poverty. To know and understand how natural resources interact with and sustain food and nutrition security. To know and understand the pathways to sustainable / ecological intensification and climate-smart agriculture.

Curriculum:

Fundamentals on natural resources (planetary boundaries) (6h), food and nutrition security (6h) and interactions (3h) – 15h
Negotiation games to dive deeper into interactions between natural resources, food and nutrition security and poverty, based on real cases from the developing world : 3h of preparatory personalwork, 6h of interactive games.
Examples from cutting-egde research on sustainable intensification and climate-smart agriculture (6h).

Global agronomy course (Clues) Land use and ecosystem services course (Clues).

H. C. J. Godfray, J. R. Beddington, I. R. Crute, L. Haddad, D. Lawrence, et al., 2010. Food Security: The Challenge of Feeding 9 Billion People, Science 327, 812–818. J. Rockström, W. Steffen, K. Noone, Å. Persson, 2009. Planetary boundaries: Exploring the safe operating space for humanity, Ecol. Soc. 14, 32.

Novembre.

PARIS

Creation of a course on a specific topic. Attendance and participation to the course will also be accounted for the final grading.

The module aims to understand how climate change could affect the functioning of ecosystems and in particular ecosystem services

content:
. Several aspects of this problem will be developed in this module :
-introduction / reminders in ecology
-relation diversity-functioning of ecosystems (3h),
- biogeochemical cycles and global changes (6h),
- structure and vegetation dynamics (3h)
- the major terrestrial biomes impacted by global changes (3h)
- interactions biosphere-atmosphere (6h).

Ecology, by Begon Harper Townsend for example.

Septembre - Octobre - Novembre.

PARIS

Erwan Personne (APT), Benoît Gabrielle (APT) Sébastien Saint-Jean (APT).

Evaluation/Assignment

-Team work -Oral defense and written report. -Communication in English -Attendance and participation to the course will also be accounted for the final grading.

Objectives:
The integrative project is intended to give the students the opportunities to work in team on concrete project and to learn how to communicate in English (oral and written) around their project and being able to formalize a scientific/technical question.

Curriculum:
Students will work in team on a project in relation to environmental and sustainable development issues. Such Projects could be either bibliographic review, either a proposal of answer to a specific call projects, or building a “Plan climat” for a public administration. Based on the project, courses on scientific communication oral and written (executive summary, abstract, pitch a project, …) will be provided.

Septembre - Octobre - Novembre - Décembre - Janvier - Février.

PARIS

Erwan Personne (ATP) et Sébastien Saint-Jean (APT).

Draft of a code to solve a scientific problem, design and scheme of algorithm Attendance and participation to the course will also be accounted for the final grading.

The course aims to put students in a position to formalize a scientific problem, to design a system, and provide an algorithm to solve it and implementing it into computer language.

Octobre - Novembre - Décembre - Janvier - Février.

PARIS

The internship topic is chosen by the student in accordance with the study board. International Internships will be strongly encouraged. During the internship, students will be asked to proceed to regular point with the study board.

Internship can be conducted in the laboratories of the Master such as EcoSys Joint Research Unit (INRA/AgroParisTech), Agronomy Joint Research Unit (INRA/AgroParisTech), Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat de l’Environnement (LSCE ; UVSQ/ CNRS/CEA) CIRED (CIRAD/CNRS/AgroParisTech)

Also, students will be encouraged to find themselves their internships in such domains: agriculture, the agro-food industry, audit and consultancy firms in relation to environmental and sustainable development issues. Public administrations (municipalities, regional authorities, national governments) are also a possible target, as are international organizations (FAO, the World Bank, or international research bodies such as the Agricultural Research Partnership CGIAR).

Objectives:
Internships are aimed to put students in professional settings.
Objectives are to apply and strengthen scientific and technics skills in a professional environment and develop interpersonal skills.

This internship and the Master's thesis is for the students to identify and clarify a problem or an issue by applying the theories and methods acquired through their undergraduate and graduate studies.
The Thesis and his oral defence must follow the formal thesis requirements and follow scientific standards and be written in a clear and grammatically correct manner.

Defence and Master’s Thesis in English. Internship can be completed in any language.

Aout - Septembre - Février - Mars - Avril - Mai - Juin - Juillet.