Research
programmes
for the South
Palaeoclimate research in Peru
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Programme 2
Programme 3
Programme 4
Programme 5
Programme 6
Programme
Natural hazards, climate and non-renewable resources
Sustainable management of Southern ecosystems
Continental and coastal waters
Food security in the South
Public health and health policy
Globalisation and development
African monsoon
Annual report 2005
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Programme
Natural hazards, climate
and non-renewable resources:
impacts on Southern populations
and the environment
Strategies for adapting to climate change
The aim of this research is to acquire basic knowledge of the effects of climate change in order to adopt
strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and making the adaptations required to deal
adequately with the impact of climate change. The IRD’s work in this field is based on the
recommendations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change under the United Nations climate
change programme.
Natural and environmental hazards: prevention and management
Natural hazards include geological hazards such as earthquakes and volcanoes and climatic hazards such
as drought and desertification. Other hazards, such as atmospheric and environmental pollution, are caused
by human activity. The IRD’s work is to understand all these hazards and to propose solutions for
forecasting, reducing and managing risk.
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Programme
Modelling the tsunami in Thailand
the time with a 94% correlation. The error margin on wave heights was less than 4%. The
model’s accuracy confirms the usefulness of comparing seismic data with hydrodynamic
data and shows the importance of developing hydrographic measurement networks in
these regions to improve knowledge of seismic hazards.
The tsunami risk map obtained gives an accurate snapshot of the event, showing not only
the vulnerable areas of Thailand but also the areas that do not need a warning system.
Finally, the researchers were able to identify the physical processes explaining certain
patterns in the tsunami’s propagation along the Thai coast. For example, the Khao Lak
region suffered 10- to 15-metre waves because offshore bathymetric features - the shape
of the sea floor - changed the tsunami’s direction and focused it as it approached the shore.
In Patong, on Phuket island, the depth of the bay trapped the wave, which had been
amplified by local wave reflection. And for Phi Phi island, the simulations clearly reproduce
how the wave crossed the isthmus between the island’s two rocky hills.
While no one can tell precisely how often such an event may recur, the mapping can
contribute to better long-term management of the coastal zone, especially for urbanisation
planning and the maintenance or re-establishment of natural protective features such as
mangroves and forest.
The IRD will be extending this work to other coastal areas around the Bay of Bengal affected
by the tsunami, in India, Sri Lanka and Indonesia. Collaboration with Madras University is
already beginning.
Shortly after the devastating tsunami in the Indian Ocean on 26 December 2004, Chulalongkorn
University in Bangkok started collaborative work with IRD researchers to make computer
simulations and map the tsunami risk in Thailand, which was hard hit by the disaster.
The December 2004 tsunami was triggered by an undersea earthquake off the island of Sumatra,
which measured 9.2 on the Richter scale. Study of this tsunami is one of the top priorities for the
Surface Waves and Tsunamis programme run by the Géosciences Azur joint research unit, one of
whose main objectives is to study the close link between submarine earthquakes or landslides and
tsunamis, particularly in the neighbourhood of subduction zones and areas of acute gravitational
instability.
The propagation of a tsunami wave fluctuates according to ocean depth and coastal topography,
so the researchers assembled the available hydrodynamic data on the Bay of Bengal: tidal curves
showing sea level variations and satellite measurements of sea level anomalies. To model the
propagation of the wave, they then compared their model with these data and the available data
on the seismic source.
Contact: Mansour Ioualalen - mansour.ioualalen@geoazur.obs-vlfr.fr
A PARTNER’S VIEWPOINT
Chidchanok Lursinsap, Director, Department of Mathematics, Chulalongkorn
University, Thailand.
The collaborative work between our department and the IRD on computer simulations of the December
2004 tsunami was very effective and is proving very promising. The results on the tsunami’s impact along
the Andaman coast were widely circulated in the scientific community and to communities hit by the
event. They are valuable both for the future development of the Andaman coast and for drawing up tsunami risk assessment plans.
The IRD’s involvement in our department’s Master’s programme is another key aspect of the success of this
scientific collaboration. The methodological and numerical elements resulting from the work are now well
established in our department. We will use them to further develop the studies and protocols for tsunami
warning systems based on future simulations.
Running the model in prognostic mode the researchers obtained the maximum variations in wave
height all along the Andaman Sea coast. The data reproduced the variations actually recorded at
Annual report 2005
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Programme
Climate change and
coral reef formation
This research is taking place under national and international programmes, with
numerous French and local partners. Partnerships have been formed with the Australian
National University in Canberra and the University of Tucson, Arizona (USA).
In New Caledonia, geochemical analysis of core samples from recent and fossil corals
reveal that variations in the nutrient composition of the reefs’ environment over the past
6,000 years has played a major role in their growth; an excess of nutrients, for example,
can slow their spread. The researchers have also shown that the New Caledonia barrier reef
formed as a stack of reefs that successively built up during the most recent interglacials
(warming periods occurring every 100,000 years, associated with high sea levels). This
pattern of reef building is similar to that found in Australia. Another important finding is that
the last interglacial, 125,000 years ago, shows the strongest climatic similarities with our
own period but proves to have been highly productive of carbonate, making it one of the
most significant reef-building periods.
More specifically, the study of reefs that have formed as sea levels have risen over the past
20,000 years should provide crucial information for answering questions about disruption of
reef growth in connection with rapid climate change over this period. This will require futher
international core-drilling operations.
Island states are now seriously worried about the future of their coral reefs. Such reefs make up a
large part of these countries’ territories, protecting islands from storms and swell and constituting
a major resource for fishing and tourism. What is the impact of global climate change on reef
growth? This is an important question, and the IRD’s Paléotropique research unit has set out to
answer it. In particular, Paléotropique is analysing patterns of climate variability in the tropical
zone since the start of the Quaternary and assessing its impact on tropical marine and terrestrial
environments, coral reefs in particular.
The study of Pacific coral reefs - in New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Wallis and French Polynesia - is now
providing vital information on variations in environmental parameters and patterns of coral reef
growth. From their one-month-resolution analysis of the composition of massive corals in such
trace elements as uranium, strontium and barium and the stable isotopes oxygen and carbon,
scientists can reconstitute variations in sea surface temperature, salinity and nutrient content over
a continuous period of several decades. Meanwhile temporal analysis of the succession of
symbiotic associations of algae and corals provides information about reef growth and
environmental changes.
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Contact: Guy Cabioch - guy.cabioch@ird.nc
A PARTNER’S VIEWPOINT
Prof. Heitor Evangelista, State University of Rio de Janeiro
The coast of Brazil has the most biologically diverse coral reefs in the entire South Atlantic. The State
University of Rio de Janeiro has found a unique opportunity in its cooperation with the IRD’s
Paléotropique team to reconstitute global and regional climate processes by studying these corals. It is
the IRD’s internationally recognised experience in this field that made this possible. This bilateral
cooperation, through CNPq/IRD projects and those conducted with the joint environmental research
laboratory LAMIRE, will help our university’s teachers, PhD students and undergraduates. It will certainly
produce an expert team of coral scientists that will strengthen our country’s multidisciplinary
palaeoclimate research capacity.
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Programme
Sustainable management of
Southern ecosystems
Biodiversity and the management of living resources
Overexploitation of ecosystems whose use is traditional, deforestation for agriculture, business or
building, cultivation of vulnerable marginal lands - all these activities reduce biodiversity. In the light
of this it is important to inventory and describe the biodiversity and dynamics of terrestrial and marine
ecosystems in all the complexity of their interactions
Remote sensing and sustainable environmental management
Measurements taken from sea and land surfaces are now regarded as important operational research
data. In fact they highlight the extent of human impacts on the environment. The tropical and equatorial
oceans are studied particularly, because they are the main site of energy exchange. The amount of water
available on land and in the ground is directly dependent on these exchanges.
Researchers’ measurements and analyses of physical, chemical and soil data improve our understanding
of ecosystem functioning, a necessary step towards sustainable ecosystem management. The IRD
proposes useful technologies aiming for Southern countries to quickly take over the technology and data
in order to sustainably manage their own environments. Research findings raise major questions for
environmental policy and local practices in face of the sustainable development challenge.
Annual report 2005
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Programme
Towards rational water resource
management in Morocco
humidity, wind speed and direction - and incorporated into physical models that can be
used to precisely calculate actual water consumption by crops, in space and time.
From this work, the researchers have developed a decision aid for irrigation in the Haouz
plain - a software developed in partnership with the Haouz region agricultural
development board ORMVAH, which is responsible for water management and
distribution. The software produces maps of crop water demand and consumption almost
in real time, making it possible to switch from water supply management to demand
management and apply optimum strategies for supervising irrigation. The CESBIO team, in
collaboration with ORMVAH, has already shown that an input of water precisely during the
growing period of a wheat crop can increase crop yields by 40% per overall quantity of
irrigation water.
In the light of these results, the Sudmed researchers have been invited to take part in the
European programme PLEIADeS, along with Moroccan and Mexican partners, to develop a
complete management system including farming system structure and farmer participation
in the process. The idea is to achieve a system in which detailed information on water
requirements, field by field, is delivered directly to farmers.
Contact: Richard Escadafal - richard.escadafal@cesbio.cnes.fr
Ghani Chehbouni - ghani.chehbouni@cesbio.cnes.fr
The region of Marrakech Tensift-El Haouz in Morocco has a semi-arid climate and must cope with
ever-increasing water demand due to population growth, economic development and fastexpanding tourist trade infrastructures. The water available, much of it coming from snowmelt on
the Atlas mountains, is already used to the full, largely for irrigating crops. Only rigorous, rational
water management will enable the region to develop while ensuring that water resources are used
sustainably.
The French-Moroccan research programme Sudmed is conducting a comprehensive study of the
region’s water resources. The programme is led by the Centre for the Study of the Biosphere from
Space (CESBIO) in Toulouse, in collaboration with Cadi-Ayyad University, Moroccan government
departments and the Moroccan national meteorological office. The goal is to achieve a more
thorough knowledge of the current state of water reserves and possible future trends, so as to
design efficient long-term management tools.
The researchers have developed original methods coupling field data, satellite data and process
models. They use satellite remote sensing to record information on the melting of the Atlas
mountains’ snow cover and hence water reserves, but also on crop development over time. These
data are processed and combined with micro-meteorological data - temperature, air turbulence and
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NEW IRD PARTNER TEAM
CREMAS (Centre for research on water in arid and semi-arid environments)
Prof. Lahoucine HANICH, Director.
In the light of Morocco’s urgent need for training and expertise in water science, researchers from Cadi
Ayyad University in Marrakech formed CREMAS to develop the scientific groundwork for rational
management of the region’s water resources. Our research concerns the water reserves held in the
Moroccan Atlas mountains’ snow cover, recharge of the aquifer in the plains and water consumption by
irrigated crops.
Since 2001 our team, supported by the IRD, has benefited from our university’s scientific partnership with
CESBIO. The groundwork of a shared scientific culture has been laid, thanks to our doctoral students’
research training, the experiments we conducted together in the field, and the missions between
Marrakech and France. Our team is now in a position to conduct new experiments, for example on improving
irrigation efficiency. And the partnership with our colleagues at CESBIO also means that our research can
be incorporated into European projects.
hanich@fstg-marrakech.ac.ma
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Programme
Fish and fishermen in South America:
a game of hide and seek
the different links in the ecosystem, right down to the fishermen’s behaviour. If these results
are confirmed, it means that the spatial organisation of fish resources can be predicted
months in advance by observing these waves.
Meanwhile, 3D models of the coastal ocean coupled with models of the anchovies’ lives at
the larval stage are providing a deeper understanding of the spatial distribution of the
breeding stock, commensurate with larval survival probabilities. These results, the fruit of
collaboration between several IRD departments and units, open up immediate prospects for
improving fishery management.
IRD scientists are also investigating the jack mackerel, a species much fished in Peru and
Chile and whose annual catches, though very variable, sometimes exceed a million tonnes.
Although these fish are usually scattered throughout the south Pacific, they sometimes
congregate in confined coastal waters and so become accessible to fishing boats. The
researchers have shown that this occurs because the mackerel collectively adopt an atypical
strategy to attack their prey. During the day, the mackerel dive down to the inhospitable depths
of the ocean, where the water is cold and low in oxygen. There they rest in a state of lethargy.
At dusk, when the prey species rise in large numbers to the surface, the mackerel quickly gather
for the attack. This strategy enables them to exploit a resource that is abundant in the world’s
oceans and is not accessible to other predators - but it also makes them vulnerable to the fishing
fleets.
Contact: Sophie Bertrand - sophie.bertrand@ird.fr
Arnaud Bertrand - arnaud.bertrand@ird.fr
Pierre Fréon - pierre.freon@ird.fr
The world’s largest single-species fishery is based on a fish less than eight inches long: the Peruvian
anchovy. The annual catch is very variable, and has oscillated between 0.1 and 15 million tonnes
since the 1960s. Daily catches can be as much as 170,000 tonnes (for comparison, the French daily
catch is 600,000 tonnes for fish of all species). Following a catastrophic collapse in the 1970s,
Peruvian anchovy stocks are now closely monitored by scientists. Fishing is controlled day by day,
partly thanks to real-time satellite monitoring of the position of every ship.
Researchers from the IRD and the Peruvian Institute of the Sea (IMARPE) have shown that the
movements of fishing boats are a good indication of spatial patterns of fish aggregation and give realtime information on the vulnerability of the anchovy stocks. These movements can therefore be used
to alert the authorities to a critical situation and prompt them to act quickly to prevent overfishing.
Other findings suggest a correlation between the amplitude of the equatorial Kelvin waves (which
arise in mid-Pacific and are associated with El Niño episodes) and the meandering paths of the fishing
boats off the Peruvian coast six months later. These waves are thought to have a domino effect on
A PARTNER’S VIEWPOINT
Renato Guevara, Scientific Director, IMARPE, Peruvian Institute of the Sea
IMARPE is a state-run institute for research into Peru’s hydrobiological resources. Its role is to advance
knowledge and develop the necessary tools for an overall understanding of the Peruvian upwelling
ecosystem, and to advise the government on rational exploitation of fishery resources and conservation of
the marine ecosystem. IMARPE has a long tradition of international cooperation, based mainly on scientific
exchange and training of researchers, engineers and technicians. Our cooperation with the IRD is very
productive. Several joint research projects involving Peruvian, French and other scientists are planned for
the next four years. They will further IMARPE’s work in developing an ecosystem approach to national
fishery management.
Annual report 2005
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Programme
Continental and coastal waters:
resources and their uses
in the South
Integrated water management
One billion people around the world have no access to clean drinking water and two and a half billion
have no sanitation. Locating reserves, providing the conditions to make them available and solving
water management problems are vital keys to development. Access to water depends on a complex
chain of actors and often involves disrupting social equilibria that have lasted for thousands of years.
Using the integrated water management approach, which requires a sound knowledge of the water
cycle, the problem of access to water can be addressed at a range of relevant scales, from village to
catchment to territory.
Sustainable development of coastal environments
This research focuses on the ecosystems of coral reefs, lagoons, estuaries, mangrove forests and inland
areas where human activity is intense. Ecosystems and their biological resources are studied to identify
the impacts of changes brought about by human activity, including increasingly intense resource use,
degradation, pollution etc. The aim is to reduce the impact on natural aquatic ecosystems and their
resources, the better to protect them and identify sustainable ways of using them.
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Programme
Groundwater flow accelerates land
subsidence around the Dead Sea
Over the past fifteen years and
more, land has been collapsing
into sinkholes in hundreds of
places along the Dead Sea coast
in Israel, Jordan and Palestine,
endangering human lives and
infrastructures. The region’s
potassium factories are now in
jeopardy. The deterioration in soil
conditions is thought to be due
to the steady drop in the level of
the Dead Sea - twenty metres
since 1960 - and to underground
water flow.
What is causing the subsidence?
Which areas are at greatest risk?
In partnership with the
Geophysical Institute of Israel,
Al-Balqa' Applied University in
Jordan and the joint research
unit UMR 7619 at Pierre and
Marie Curie University in Paris,
IRD scientists are trying to
understand the local soil
degradation process and develop
a risk assessment method. The research is part of NATO’s Science for Peace programme.
To study the correlation between groundwater flow and the spread of subsidence, the scientists
took geophysical measurements in Dead Sea coast areas of Israel and Jordan. They used protonic
magnetic resonance (PMR), an original technology capable of locating a body of underground water
from the surface and determining the hydraulic permeability of the surrounding rock. It is based on
the principle that the protons (hydrogen nuclei) in water molecules resonate in response to
electromagnetic signals emitted from the surface. The response is directly proportional to the
amount of water present underground. Initially developed in Russia in the 1980s, the technology
has been improved in France in a collaborative effort involving the Russian Academy of
Science, the BRGM, IRD and the French company IRIS-Instruments.
The researchers conducted a series of measurements at precise locations where boreholes
had been drilled in 1999 and 2001 and subsidence had occurred since then. In the places
where drilling had revealed an 11-metre thick layer of poorly permeable rock salt in which
groundwater was circulating, the PMR measurements revealed a karst cavity not detected
by the drilling five years earlier, in which the groundwater is able to circulate much faster.
The scientists concluded that the cavity had formed between 1999 and 2005 through
dissolution of the salt layer by circulating groundwater.
In general terms, this work validates one of the current hypotheses about the processes
involved in soil degradation in the region. On this theory, groundwater flowing down from
the mountains to the Dead Sea is gradually dissolving the underground salt layer, creating
cavities and causing the ground above to cave in.
By taking PMR measurements regularly at the same site, the scientists should be able to
estimate the rate at which underground dissolution and cavity formation are advancing. The
data will then be used to produce a computer model of the phenomenon.
Contact: Anatoli Legtchenko - anatoli.legtchenko@hmg.inpg.fr
A PARTNER’S VIEWPOINT
Dr. Abdallah Al-Zoubi, Associate Professor of Geophysics
Al-Balqa’ Applied University, Salt, Jordan
Understanding the formation of sinkholes along the Dead Sea coast is an essential step for defining a
risk management strategy. Under the NATO programme our university is collaborating with the
Geophysical Institute of Israel, the University of Paris-VI and the IRD. The PMR method brought to us by
the IRD researchers should help to improve our understanding of the role of groundwater in these land
subsidences. Several Jordanian technicians and engineers received training in PMR technology during the
last field survey. And the measurements have produced impressive results, especially as the Dead Sea
basin is considered one of the most complex geological zones in the Middle East. We hope to strengthen
this collaboration in the near future, to help us solve Jordan’s water problems - short supply, environmental problems.
Annual report 2005
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Programme
Towards sustainable fish farming with tilapia
system, a closed circuit in which unused feed and the excreta from the fish are
mineralised and used as fertiliser for phytoplankton. The phytoplankton are consumed by
herbivorous zooplankton, these in turn being used to feed the juvenile tilapia.
This total recycling system, called SARI (Système Aquacole à Recyclage Intégral), is
protected by an IRD patent. A prototype has been set up at the IRD centre in Mbour, 80km
from Dakar. The tropical climate is ideal for maximising this type of production in
phytoplankton-rich water (“green water”).
SARI has several advantages. It requires only one-third of the usual amount of fish feed;
being a closed system it releases no effluent and no organic pollution into the environment;
it protects the fish from contamination by pathogens, from competitors and from genetic
pollution by related species in the surrounding waters. It also conserves freshwater,
requiring only 1% renewal per day compared to 10% in a conventional semi-intensive fish
farm. A dynamic model of the system incorporating the hydraulic, physico-chemical,
ecological and bioenergetic aspects will enable the researchers to optimise the
management protocol.
SARI should reduce tilapia production costs to less than €1/kg, making it competitive on the
international market. In Senegal, where there is no tradition of village fish farms, it is the
professional fish traders who are interested in the technology. These first developments will
then spread to cooperatives and small-scale local producers.
Developing aquaculture is a major priority for meeting future food needs worldwide. Even now, 30%
of all food from aquatic sources is produced by aquaculture. However, farming carnivorous fish such
as salmon and turbot conflicts with the logic of sustainable development. It takes 6kg of herring
to produce 1 kg of salmon, a low feed conversion ratio which makes the system costly. The fish
meal used is manufactured in Northern countries and can concentrate pollutants such as dioxin.
Intensive fish farming also consumes large amounts of water and releases effluent rich in organic
matter, causing environmental damage.
Whence the interest in developing production of omnivorous fish such as carp and tilapia. As they
feed mainly on plant matter and detritus in the wild, they can be fed vegetable protein, which costs
less and has little tendency to accumulate pollutants.
For some twenty years now the IRD has been conducting aquaculture research in West Africa with
tilapia, one sub-species of which, Sarotherodon melanotheron heudelotii, shows promise for fish
farming. This fish, which resembles sea bream and has a
pleasant flavour, feeds mainly on algae, phytoplankton and
organic matter in sediment, whereas the juveniles feed on
zooplankton. The researchers at IRD research unit UR 167
(CyRoCo, tropical aquatic cyanobacteria), have designed an
original brackish-water farming system to suit these feeding
patterns. The fish are raised under cover in a total recycling
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Contact: Sylvain Gilles - sylvain.gilles@ird.sn
Xavier Lazzaro - xavier.lazzaro@ird.sn
A PARTNER’S VIEWPOINT
Papa Doudou Yerim FALL, Managing Director, La Ligne Océane, Dakar
When we heard about the IRD’s fish farming work, our seafood marketing company La Ligne Océane
decided to set up a fish farm for marine tilapia. We have the support of the IRD, the FAO and the
continental fishing and aquaculture department at the Senegalese Ministry for Maritime Economy. A
production unit with an annual output capacity of 120 tonnes, designed for expansion to over 200 tonnes,
is being considered.
From December to March, the cool season in Senegal, sea water temperatures are around 18°C. With the
IRD’s total recycling fish farming system we can have marine tilapia reproducing all year round, even
though the alevins and juveniles are extremely sensitive to low temperatures. And the recycling of the
effluent will provide optimum growing conditions.
Programme
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Food security in the South
Farming system productivity
In many parts of the world, low yields combined with rapid population growth has forced farmers to
cultivate new land that is not suitable for farming. The result is deforestation and soil degradation. The
challenge today is to continue to increase food production to meet future needs, but without damaging
the environment. Food security and sustainable development - the two notions are intimately linked are major challenges for Southern countries. IRD teams working on agricultural issues focus their work,
including basic research, on the prospect of improving yields from farmland under sustainable
conditions, i.e. while maintaining soil fertility, minimising soil erosion and reducing inputs. By
identifying genetic mechanisms and developing biological and physiological knowledge they make it
possible to breed new crop varieties much faster than was possible before.
Food policy
Eliminating hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition while managing natural resources in a sustainable
way is a key development challenge.
Rapid scientific and technological progress in molecular biology, communications, information and energy
has highlighted the need for government policies to simultaneously take into account the needs of farmers,
consumers and the environment.
The IRD’s food policy research is focused on identifying appropriate policies (incentive measures) that local
policy makers can introduce to improve the efficiency of food systems and encourage farmers to increase
their output while managing natural resources sustainably.
Annual report 2005
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Programme
Rodent population biology in flood
areas of the Sahelo-Sudanian zone
Rodent pest control is vital for protecting crops and improving farm yields. In response to partners
in Mali and Senegal who want to adopt affordable, effective and non-polluting rodent control
strategies, IRD researchers are conducting research to improve understanding of the population
dynamics and distribution of rodents in West Africa.
influenced not only by day length but also by factors unrelated to light, such as
temperature, humidity and food availability. The mechanisms behind this are still
unknown.
The results show that the rodent’s body clock is probably the transmission relay for
environmental signals associated with the start of the breeding and dispersal phases
observed in nature. Modelling the effects of pluriannual flood patterns on pest rodent
population dynamics in floodplains and seasonal wetlands has important economic
implications for farming. It is also a very suitable model for studying survival mechanisms
in a habitat with a marked seasonal pattern subject to wide inter-annual variations.
The research has already improved knowledge of the systematics, interrelations and distribution of
African rodents, particularly such highly prolific ones as Arvicanthise and Mastomys species.
Study of different species’ physiological capabilities for managing water requirements confirmed
that resistance to dehydration is a key factor in their distribution, especially Arvicanthis in Mali,
and also in the changes in distribution observed since the Sahel’s climate started to become drier
in the late 1970s. For example, this drought resistance explains the recent dominance of Gerbillus
in Senegal.
Long-term ecological monitoring in Burkina Faso, Mali and northern Senegal show that rodent
outbreaks are often the result of inter-annual climate variations: a year of normal rainfall after
several consecutive drought years in areas not prone to flooding, or several years of moderate
floods in floodplains and seasonal wetlands. These climate fluctuations affect the food chain and
so impact on the rodents’ annual cycles of reproduction, dispersal and mortality.
In areas not prone to flooding, the start of the annual breeding season correlates with such
seasonal signals as day length, temperature, humidity and food resources. The researchers
modelled the risk of population explosions according to a typology of atypical rainfall situations
and the reproductive characteristics of each species. A similar approach was taken in the floodplain
of the Niger River’s inland delta, where atypical floods have a major impact on the annual breeding
and dispersal periods of the two main rodent species, Arvicanthis niloticus and Mastomys huberti.
The research on Arvicanthis has revealed that the diurnal mammals of the tropics and the
nocturnal mammals of temperate regions have similar molecular mechanisms for light
synchronisation of the circadian clock governing the 24-hour biological cycle. The mechanisms
that control melatonin production in the brain at night - melatonin being the hormone that
regulates biological rhythms - are identical in tropical and temperate rodents. Variations in
melatonin induced by changes in day length significantly alter the daily activity rhythm of
Arvicanthis. By monitoring biosynthesis in the pineal gland of Arvicanthis in the field, the
researchers showed that seasonal variations in melatonin production by the pineal gland are
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Contact: sicard@ird.ml
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Programme
Biotechnology to the aid
of Saharan date palms
The IRD’s Mauritanian, Senegalese and Djiboutian partners selected some forty varieties
adapted to local environmental and climatic conditions. Basic research designed to
understand the different stages leading from the undifferentiated cell to the embryo and
from there to the plantlet was conducted in partnership with the Dakar and Algiers
laboratories.
In 2005 the entire protocol for producing date palm plantlets by somatic embryogenesis
using cell cultures in a liquid medium was validated. The first clones of several dozen
plants are in a nursery in Dakar. Larger-scale production trials are under way in the
laboratory. With these results, the product of five years’ North-South partnership, date palm
nursery plants should soon be in production to help rehabilitate degraded land and
sedentarise communities as they take up date farming. This is the purpose of the new plant
biotechnology laboratory at the Djibouti Research Centre (CERD), which was set up with the
help of IRD expertise and with which the IRD should continue scientific collaboration long
term.
Contact: Alain Borgel - alain.borgel@mpl.ird.fr
NEW IRD PARTNER TEAM
The date palm is widely cultivated as a village crop in arid regions of the Middle East, Egypt, the
Maghreb and northern to central Mauritania. But it is not grown in semi-arid regions around the
Sahara, even though it is a major economic resource and extending date cultivation is a vital part
of national anti-poverty policies in some places, such as the Republic of Djibouti. There are several
biological factors that hinder the spread of date production.
The date palm’s varietal characteristics can only be preserved by vegetative multiplication. To
produce identical nursery plants, farmers traditionally use suckers growing out from the main plant,
but these are not sufficiently numerous to meet countrywide demand. In the Sahel and Djibouti,
the spread of the crop is also limited by a lack of varieties adapted to local climates and soil
conditions.
To overcome these biological obstacles, Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar began a research
programme in 2002, in partnership with IRD researchers specialising in biotechnology methods
applicable to the date palm. The main aim is to optimise the protocols for cloning date palms by
somatic embryogenesis, to multiply high-quality nursery plants. The clones will be assessed to
select the most suitable date palm varieties in terms of fruit production, flowering and fruiting
cycles and adaptation to local climates.
Dr Djribril SANE, team leader, Developmental Physiology of Tropical Perennial Plants
research team, Dakar
In 2003 our collaboration with the IRD was consolidated in the
form of a New IRD Partner Team. Our research theme is the
production of clones by in vitro culture and analysis of genetic
diversity in filao and date palm, two forest species of great
importance to Senegal. Our team has benefited from the
Montpellier unit’s acknowledged expertise in molecular
physiology and developmental physiology of tropical perennials.
Since then we have contributed to a better understanding of the development of both these species and
the genetic basis of the varieties selected for their agronomic characteristics. With proficiency in the
cloning techniques developed by the Montpellier unit, we can now transfer the technology to our
biotechnology laboratory in Dakar.
This research is a response to a serious concern expressed by the Senegalese authorities. The end results
should provide an effective way of combating erosion and the sanding up of cultivated inter-dune valleys
in the Niayes area, and should also reduce Senegal’s date imports; we should be able to disseminate
cultivars that are well adapted to the Sahelian climate and also produce high-quality dates.
Contact: djisane@refer.sn
Annual report 2005
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Programme
Public health, health policy and
access to healthcare
Access to healthcare is a cross-cutting issue that should systematically accompany the research
undertaken. It is a priority field for the IRD’s health and social science research.
Combating major diseases linked to poverty: AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis
These severe, widespread diseases have major economic impacts and seriously hamper development
by the morbidity and mortality they entail. To combat them it is essential to make such treatments as
exist more accessible, develop new methods of diagnosis and treatment and improve research quality.
Environment and emerging diseases
In developing countries, taking into consideration the impact of the environment on health is a recent
preoccupation for citizens and policy makers alike. The emergence and transmission of many diseases
depends on local environments and environmental change. The IRD therefore takes an ecosystemic
approach to human health. It aims to design policy approaches that are applicable in local contexts and
are also open-ended, leading to solutions that will be viable in the long term. Developing countries are
no longer sheltered from the diseases of civilisation, but at the same time changes in human and
environmental conditions make them the incubators of newly emerging diseases such as SARS, bird flu
and West Nile fever that represent global hazards.
Mother and infant health
Women’s health is particularly vulnerable because of the risks connected with pregnancy and childbirth.
Furthermore, by the care they give their children they ensure the health of future generations. Reproductive
health, the risk of mother-to-infant transmission of the AIDS virus and other factors affecting the health of
mothers and infants are important research strands at the IRD. The role and work that society allocates to
women - a long neglected factor - and the issue of gender inequality should be essential strands of social
science research, particularly with regard to their impact on health.
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Programme
Intermittent preventive treatment
against malaria:
fresh hope for children
treatment has the advantage of keeping the number of drug doses to a minimum,
administered on precise dates according to the seasonal transmission pattern. The idea is to
step in just before the infection arrives, to achieve an optimum cost-efficiency ratio without
augmenting the selection of drug resistant parasite strains.
The study was a random, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial involving 1,136 children aged
between two months and five years living in the seasonal malaria transmission zone, in
Niakhar, a rural area 150 km from Dakar. Once a month during the three-month peak period
(September to November), half the children received a combination of the malaria drugs
artenusate and sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine, and the other half received a placebo with no
active ingredient. The treatment was administered without prior testing for malarial infection.
The trial was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
During the 13 weeks the children were monitored, only 39 episodes of malaria were recorded
among the treated children, compared to 222 in the control group - a reduction of 86% in the
number of malaria attacks. Tolerance to the drugs was excellent.
The results show that this new approach confers excellent protection against malaria in young
children in the particular environment of the Sahel. These results in young children are
especially promising because, with so few doses delivered, the cost of the operation is low
despite the use of two malaria drugs in combination. This also makes it possible to apply
the strategy on a large scale without risking rapid selection of drug-resistant parasite strains.
A project involving 100,000 children should start in Senegal in late 2006, to assess the efficiency
of this type of operation when run by the community.
Malaria kills one to three million people a year worldwide, most of them in tropical Africa. It is the
foremost cause of infant death in the Sahelian zone, especially among under-fives, and increasing
drug resistance is making this situation worse. New anti-malaria treatments and fresh approaches to
preventing infection are badly needed.
In the Sahelian zone, malaria transmission is highly seasonal, with an annual peak towards the end
of the rainy season: over 90% of annual malaria morbidity and mortality among under-fives occurs in
a period of just three months. To prevent this annual peak, scientists from IRD research units UR 77
(Malaria research in tropical Africa) and UR 24 (Epidemiology and prevention), Cheikh Anta Diop
University in Dakar and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine tested a new approach:
seasonal intermittent preventive treatment. This consists of administering therapeutic doses of antimalaria drugs to children at fixed intervals.
While the WHO advises against conventional chemoprophylaxis in Africa because it is difficult to
practice on a large scale and favours the spread of drug-resistant strains, intermittent preventive
Contact: trape@ird.sn and sokhna@ird.sn
SERVICE UNIT ASSISTS CLINICAL TRIAL
Pascal Arduin, Director, US 9
Projects in the Niakhar area are coordinated by service unit US 9 (Demographic, epidemiological and environmental monitoring), which is based in Dakar and is equipped with technical and data processing facilities.
US 9 provides research teams with methodological expertise and records and structures data to produce
high-grade information readily available to researchers.
For the clinical malaria trial, the service unit used software to select the sample base and divide the children
randomly between the treatment group and the control group. It also designed the system for entering and
analysing the questionnaire data. The unit’s field team helped to inform the local community and health
workers.
Annual report 2005
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Programme
Visceral leishmaniasis:
successful dog vaccine trial
trypanosomatides) in Montpellier, in collaboration with the biopharmaceutical company Bio
Véto Test, have developed a new type of vaccine for dogs, consisting entirely of proteins
excreted by the parasite.
The trials, conducted in partnership with Bio Véto Test and in collaboration with the
Lyon National Veterinary School and a network of veterinarians, showed very good
tolerance to the vaccine, absence of toxicity and excellent protection. It proved 100%
effective in twenty dogs infected with the parasite after being vaccinated. Clinical trials
were then performed with over 400 dogs, which were vaccinated and then subjected to
natural infection during two transmission seasons in endemic areas of southern France.
The effectiveness rate was nearly 90%.
These results strongly support the idea that this candidate vaccine protects dogs against
visceral leishmaniasis. Besides their value for veterinary medicine, they give promise of a
reduction in transmission to humans and offer a major opportunity to accelerate development
of a human vaccine. In this regard current research is designed to define precisely which
parasite factor or factors in the vaccine are capable of conferring a high level of protection in
the canine model.
Contact: Jean-Loup Lemesre - j-loup.lemesre@mpl.ird.fr
Leishmaniasis is an orphan disease that is endemic in 88 countries on four of the world’s five
continents, mainly in developing countries but also in Brazil, India and southern Europe. Between 2
and 2.5 million new cases appear each year and nearly 12 million people around the world are
thought to be carrying the parasite. Leishmaniasis is a complex set of parasite infections with a wide
spectrum of cutaneous, muco-cutaneous and visceral clinical signs.
Visceral leishmaniasis is the most severe form. No vaccine for it exists, and if not treated it quickly
leads to death. It affects 500,000 people a year, killing 59,000 of them. The therapeutic arsenal is old
and extremely limited, offering only long, toxic, costly treatments that in many cases fail to prevent
relapse. The situation is now even more worrying, with the appearance of a growing number of coinfections with HIV and the emergence of drug-resistant strains.
Combating the disease simultaneously in humans and in dogs, its main reservoir, is an effective public
health strategy against leishmaniasis. If a canine vaccine is developed it could reduce the population
of infected dogs and so limit transmission of the disease to humans. So far, a variety of candidate
vaccines have proven poorly effective. Scientists at IRD research unit UR 08 (Pathogenics of
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A PARTNER’S VIEWPOINT
Gérard Papierok, CEO of Bio Véto Test
Our company specialises in veterinary diagnosis and began working with the IRD in 1992, to develop a
quick diagnostic test for visceral leishmaniasis in dogs. A contract for the supply of biological material
was signed, in order to produce a diagnostic kit.
The canine vaccination project was set up in 1997, with support from the French innovation agency
ANVAR. It was based on the shared desire of the IRD and Bio Veto Test to drive forward knowledge of
the main natural reservoir of visceral leishmaniasis, the dog. As there was no immunological tool available
at the time, we had to develop new tests to identify the type of immune response involved in protection
by the vaccine. Although we provided our expertise in running clinical trials and our collaboration with a
network of 18 veterinary clinics in southern France, the IRD’s experimental research support was decisive
throughout the project. These tests were an example of first-rate synergy between a public institute and
a business enterprise. The excellent results should speed up development of a vaccine against human
leishmaniasis.
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Globalisation and development:
socio-economic, spatial and
identity dynamics
Reducing poverty and inequality
Poverty and inequality reduction are major strands in development policy and the international
community’s global objectives. They are studied from a number of angles: the multidimensional
aspects of poverty (monetary, human, time-related); access to public services such as education,
healthcare, water and transport; labour market functioning; and the impact of official and private
development aid.
International migration and development
The globalisation process has accelerated the movement of all production factors, but restrictions remain
on the free movement of labour. Intensification of population movements along the world’s main fracture
lines, where the income gap is widest (the axis from Europe through North Africa to sub-Saharan Africa),
makes international migration a major issue in modern development and its problems. IRD research in this
field focuses on the determinants of migration; its consequences for societies and their environments;
measuring mobility and examining its impact in terms of territorial and social recomposition at town,
region and country scales; the formation of networks and diaspora organisations; and the identity
reconstructions that result from migration.
Better governance for sustainable development
This research lies at the interface between societies and nature and also at the interface between local
practices and official and international policy on biodiversity conservation and environmental management.
It seeks to provide facts and ideas for the debate on sustainable development - on how to combine the
economic development of developing countries’ populations with environmental protection. Local knowledge
and practices are taken into account and are often useful for defining the dimensions of a better form of
governance, one that would be appropriate, accepted and efficient.
Two aspects are particularly emphasised: access to and conservation of resources, and access to services and
urbanisation.
Annual report 2005
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Education policy and strategy
in Southern countries
The research is being conducted in Africa and Asia, with a variety of in-country partners.
These include the Higher Institute for Population Science at the University of Ouagadougou
(Burkina Faso), the Institute for Economic Research in Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam) and the
Institute for Educational Strategy and Programmes in Hanoi (Vietnam). It also benefits from
international networks such as the Famille et Scolarisation en Afrique network and
international partnerships with UN agencies and international NGOs.
The work has enabled the IRD and its partners to make a fresh study of the relations between
education supply and demand and to show that, even in countries like Vietnam where a high
proportion of children go to school, pockets with no schooling persist. In Burkina Faso, some
children still live more than 20km from the nearest primary school. Similarly, although
progress has been made, gender inequality is still acute. Lastly, the wide discrepancy between
families’ education demands and those supported by education policy persists: education
supply falls far short of demand.
Contact: Marie-France Lange - marie-france.lange@bondy.ird.fr
Despite the international community’s renewed interest in education over the past decade and the
increased involvement of international organisations in defining and implementing development
policies, the current situation falls far short of expectations. Progress towards the “Education for All”
goal is lagging far behind, gender inequality persists, poverty has worsened in some countries and
social, economic and educational inequalities have increased significantly.
Why is success in the drive for education for all proving so elusive? What are the mechanisms behind
the increasing inequalities in schooling and the divergences in education strategy? How much
autonomy do poor countries have in defining their education policies? What are the obstacles and
opportunities for skills training? Several programmes at UR 105 (Knowledge and development) are
seeking answers to these questions through research on five themes. Researchers are analysing the
different factors that govern relations between family structure and children’s school enrolment;
studying the forms in which school demand and the institutionalisation of school are expressed;
looking at changing perceptions of school and changes in family strategies; seeking to determine
how policies on schooling are drawn up and implemented; examining relations between education
supply and demand; and studying human resource training and national capacity building.
24
A PARTNER’S VIEWPOINT
Maxime Compaoré, Institute of Social Sciences (INSS), Burkina Faso
The Education Science Department at the INSS has been working with the IRD since 2000, with
numerous joint actions such as setting up a research workshop on education in Burkina Faso, organising
seminars and symposia and conducting research or consultancy work at the request of international
NGOs. Various research programmes have given NGOs’ education managers and Ministerial policy makers
scientific input on aspects of education that had not been recognised before. For example, a study of
evening classes by the joint Franco-Burkinabe team drew the attention of education actors to this parallel
education system, which targets those without access to the school system. Measures were then taken to
help the evening class teachers, who have also formed a teachers’ association.
At present, we are working with the IRD on a project on the challenge of universal primary education in
Burkina Faso, supported by the French Cooperation Agency. This study is analysing the relations between
education supply and demand.
All this work is helping to extend and develop education in Burkina Faso.
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Programme
Population dynamics and
sustainable development in Madagascar
Through painstaking field surveys, and with researchers from a variety of disciplines
working together, the team has shed light on the importance of a number of variables in
the socio-economic dynamics of Malagasy society and its relations with the environment.
The land tenure system, the precise location of a household, the difficulty of obtaining
loans, membership of a social network: all these play crucial roles. The findings show that
emigration is accelerating and the birth rate beginning to decline, owing to a lack of local
agricultural and economic opportunities as land holdings, divided among heirs at each
generation, become progressively smaller.
The surveys also revealed that many children had never had their births registered with the
authorities, limiting factors being the cost of registration and distance from the town hall.
A humanitarian support project enabled all these children to be registered and ran a
campaign among Malagasy couples to raise awareness of the importance of this step.
Researchers had numerous meetings to exchange views with policy makers and
administrators from government ministries, international organisations and NGOs. In
Ampitatafika district a local procedure for issuing official titles to land, giving small farmers
greater security of tenure, was set up on an experimental basis. Meetings were held locally
with the Minister for Agriculture, Livestock and Fishery and local authority officers to facilitate
procedures for adopting new techniques for fish farming and persimmon growing.
The 4D programme’s results are particularly significant because Madagascar is entering a
phase of political and economic decentralisation that offers real possibilities for implementing
local development policies.
Contact: Frédéric Sandron - frederic.sandron@ird.fr
Madagascar, one of the world’s poorest countries, has a fast growing population, serious economic
difficulties and major environmental problems with forest and brush clearance, soil erosion and
many endangered species. There is an urgent need for research into sustainable development for
the country, taking full account of the complex interactions between demography, economy,
cultural practices and environment. This is the aim of a programme on population dynamics and
sustainable development in the Madagascar highlands, called 4D (Dynamique Démographique et
Développement Durable). The programme has been running since 2003, in collaboration with
Malagasy and French institutions. It is coordinated by IRD research unit UR 151 (Population Environment - Development) and the Catholic Institute of Madagascar.
The programme focuses on the rural district of Ampitatafika, 100 km south of the capital
Antananarivo. The dynamics observable in this district probably prefigure those to come elsewhere
in rural Madagascar, with high population density, a high proportion of people living below the
poverty line, small farms, no spare farmland and scarce natural resources.
Bénédicte Gastineau - bgastineau@ird.mg
www.ird.mg/4d
BUILDING RESEARCH CAPACITY
The collaboration between the Catholic Institute of Madagascar (ICM) and the IRD goes far beyond
the research work proper. In 2005 the two partner institutes set up a postgraduate course in
Population and Development. Two-thirds of the teaching work is done by French and Malagasy
research lecturers from the 4D programme. When the first intake graduated, three of the Malagasy
students were able to enrol for doctoral theses at French universities. With support from the
University of Paris-V and the IRD’s Department for Capacity-Building Support, this partnership
should become even closer in the coming years as the ICM switches to the Bachelor’s-Master’sDoctorate teaching system. This capacity-building aspect is also important within the 4D programme, which has nine doctoral students - five Malagasy, one Algerian (through South-South cooperation) and three French.
Annual report 2005