Nicolas Becu | Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique / French National Centre for Scientific Research (original) (raw)

Papers by Nicolas Becu

Mapping and Forecasting Land Use

Due to mounting human pressure, stakeholders in northern Thailand are facing crucial natural reso... more Due to mounting human pressure, stakeholders in northern Thailand are facing crucial natural resource management issues. The impact of upstream irrigation management on the downstream agricultural viability is a common source of conflict. It has often both biophysical and social origins. CATCHSCAPE has been developed as an Agent-Based model that enables us to describe the whole catchment: hydrology, farmers' behaviour and water management rules. It is meant to simulate scenarios based on assumptions about value of these features as well as some assumptions about context, such as levels of prices for various commodities or climate. The biophysical modules are made of a hydrological system with its distributed water balance, irrigated schemes management, crop and vegetation dynamics. The social dynamics are described as a set of resource management processes (water, land, cash, labour force). Water management is described according to the actual different levels of control (indivi...

Ecole thématique SCEMSITE (SCEnarisations, Modélisations et SImulations spatialisées pour le TErr... more Ecole thématique SCEMSITE (SCEnarisations, Modélisations et SImulations spatialisées pour le TErritoire). Puy Saint Vincent, 7-11 Mars 201

CoMSES Net’s second virtual conference, 2018

Approche et méthode d'évaluation de la participation dans un dispositif de simulation participati... more Approche et méthode d'évaluation de la participation dans un dispositif de simulation participative : le cas de LittoSIM Actes des sixièmes journées doctorales (2020) du GIS Démocratie & Participation sur les expérimentations démocratiques, la participation du public et la démocratie participative

Sciences Eaux & Territoires, 2021

Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour Institut national de recherche pour l'agriculture, l'al... more Distribution électronique Cairn.info pour Institut national de recherche pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (INRAE). © Institut national de recherche pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement (INRAE). Tous droits réservés pour tous pays. La reproduction ou représentation de cet article, notamment par photocopie, n'est autorisée que dans les limites des conditions générales d'utilisation du site ou, le cas échéant, des conditions générales de la licence souscrite par votre établissement. Toute autre reproduction ou représentation, en tout ou partie, sous quelque forme et de quelque manière que ce soit, est interdite sauf accord préalable et écrit de l'éditeur, en dehors des cas prévus par la législation en vigueur en France. Il est précisé que son stockage dans une base de données est également interdit.

La gestion des ressources naturelles est un facteur cle du developpement durable des pays d'A... more La gestion des ressources naturelles est un facteur cle du developpement durable des pays d'Asie du Sud Est et notamment de la Thailande. L'eau est une ressource importante dont l'acces et la gestion sont souvent sources de conflits. Encore recemment les Nations Unies estimaient a plus de cent le nombre de zones du monde ou un conflit relatif a l'eau existait ou etait latent. A une echelle extremement plus reduite, un conflit sur la gestion de l'eau d'irrigation est en train de prendre forme dans le petit bassin versant du Mae Uam au nord de la Thailande. Durant la saison seche, les agriculteurs des perimetres irrigues de l'aval du bassin font face, depuis plusieurs annees, a un manque d'eau pour l'irrigation de leurs cultures. Ils accusent les perimetres irrigues de l'amont du bassin d'etre responsables de ce manque d'eau. Face a ce type de conflit emergent, quelles peuvent etre les demarches adequates pour trouver un arrangement dura...

Bycatches appear to be one of the main causes of man-induced mortality of dolphins and porpoises ... more Bycatches appear to be one of the main causes of man-induced mortality of dolphins and porpoises in the Bay of Biscay. However bycatch estimations for common dolphins vary between 550 (observer-based estimate) and 4700 (stranding-based estimate) per year in the area depending on the methodological choice. In addition to problematic monitoring, mitigation measures as the use of pingers have been inefficient in French waters. Consequently, improving the understanding of interactions between small cetaceans and fisheries remains a challenge. This paper describes how divergent scientific estimations of cetacean bycatches can affect interactions between stakeholders. By using the Actor-Network Theory, we focused on scientific and managerial instruments translating small cetacean bycatches in the Bay of Biscay. According to this social science perspective, instruments are not neutral and play a central role in defining how stakeholders look at an issue. Translating observations into an ag...

Since 2011, an international training session is organized every summer in Montpellier (France) b... more Since 2011, an international training session is organized every summer in Montpellier (France) by a group of researchers who are using (and for some of them developping) various generic agent-based simulation platforms (Cormas, Gama, Mimosa, NetLogo). A benchmark model is implemented from scratch and demonstrated with these platformas by the trainers. From a textual description of a stylized socio-ecological system, the successive steps leading to a runnable model are performed in front of the trainees. The implementation is influenced by the platform, and also by the modellers' interpretations made from the initial description. More formal descriptions (like UML) are needed to enable implementing equivalent models with the different platforms. We draw some lessons from these parallel implementations of a benchmarck model, a process that slightly differs from the replication of an existing agent-based model. (Texte integral)

Marine submersion is a major issue in coastal zones, which is becoming increasingly important wit... more Marine submersion is a major issue in coastal zones, which is becoming increasingly important with the global changes at work today (sea level rise, extreme climatic events, population increase in coastal areas...). In France, this issue was particularly publicized at the time of the Xynthia storm in 2010 which caused a large submersion (47 dead, 1 million homes deprived of electricity, 1.53 meter de surcote at La Rochelle). This event prompted an acceleration of coastal protection policies through the planning of a number of preventive measures. It also demonstrated a lack of risk culture by local officials and managers (technicians) in charge of risk prevention at the municipality level (in France, coastal risk prevention is managed at the municipal and inter-municipal level). A participatory simulation tool was specifically developed in 2005 and 2006, to foster social learning with municipalities' officials and managers, on the different possible prevention measures and help them built an integrated strategy at the inter-municipal level. The simulation tool and the setting of the participatory workshops held with this tool, are described in a previous paper (Becu et al. 2017). In short, the main design aspect of this participatory simulation is that participants teams, have to choose between different prevention measures, or actions (e.g. build, raise, dismantle dikes, modify the land use plan, relocate vulnerable housings, create higher residential densities or adapt housing equipment to flooding), according to their budget, their risk exposure, the lead time and the arrangements with the other teams. Submersion events occur fortuitously during the simulation, simulating the extent of flooding depending on previous players' actions, and players take note of the results and then seek to improve their prevention strategy. The debriefing is on the evolution of teams' prevention strategies throughout the simulation. To that end, their actions during the simulation are recorded and classified according into three main prevention strategies: “hard” coastal protection through dikes, “soft” coastal protection through natural restoration and flood adapted equipment, and managed realignment. In 2017, four participatory simulation workshops were conducted with municipalities' officials and managers of Oleron Island, a territory which was particularly impacted by Xynthia flooding. 33 persons participated, 18 were officials (including 5 of the 8 mayors of Oléron Island) and 15 were managers (among which 5 were department heads and 10 were technicians). We conducted an evaluation on social learning and on participants' opinion about strengths and weaknesses of the different prevention strategies. The evaluation method included observation and discourse analysis of the workshops' discussions, as well as ex-ante and ex-post questionnaires and interviews. Acquired knowledge are on marine submersion hazard, prevention measures and collective action process which validates our learning objectives. Participants learned much more about prevention measures under the “soft” coastal protection strategy, compared to other prevention strategies. A main topic of discussion during debriefing was on the opportunity to shift from the actual dominant “hard” coastal protection strategy to other types of strategies. Before the workshops, participants had a balanced opinion about “hard” coastal protection, but after, one third perceived more weaknesses than strengths. Simultaneously, their opinion about managed realignment shifted from disfavor to rather nuanced, and all participants were mostly in favor of “soft” prevention measures. However, they all agree that inter-municipal level is the right scale to have a truly integrated risk prevention strategy and to be able to operate this paradigm shift

Natures Sciences Sociétés, 2021

Quels sont les liens entre la relation au lieu que développent des individus et leur « concerneme... more Quels sont les liens entre la relation au lieu que développent des individus et leur « concernement » à propos de phénomènes qualifiés de « risques » sur ce même lieu ? Afin de répondre à cette question, un état de l’art précise tout d’abord le concept de « concernement » en qualifiant différentes modalités (notamment « passif » ou « actif ») ainsi que le concept de « relation au lieu » et ses différentes dimensions (identitaire, émotionnelle, symbolique, fonctionnelle). Sur la base de ces précisions, et à partir des données issues de différentes enquêtes menées sur les littoraux français, une analyse est ensuite menée pour explorer empiriquement les liens entre différentes dimensions de la relation au lieu et les modalités de concernement vis-à-vis des risques fluviaux et côtiers. Les résultats montrent des liens négatifs entre les dimensions symboliques et émotionnelles de la relation au lieu et un concernement qualifié de passif, ainsi que des liens positifs entre la relation sym...

Revue internationale de psychosociologie et de gestion des comportements organisationnels, 2021

En proposant des modes alternatifs de gestion du risque littoral, les pouvoirs publics francais f... more En proposant des modes alternatifs de gestion du risque littoral, les pouvoirs publics francais font face aux reticences des collectivites locales. La reception sociale de la gestion du risque se pose d’autant plus que la perspective des effets du changement climatique rend le besoin de definir de maniere de plus en plus pregnante, des strategies optimisees et a long terme. En se basant sur une experience de simulation participative, nous montrons comment se constitue le processus de reception sociale d’une politique de gestion du risque, en presentant une etude de cas a Oleron, pendant laquelle les participants a des ateliers experimentent des modes de gestion alternatifs du risque de submersion. L’article montre que la mise en place d’un dispositif participatif permet de qualifier la reception sociale d’une politique publique de gestion du risque, du point de vue des connaissances sur les risques, des echelles de gestion des risques littoraux et de la sensibilite aux effets du changement climatique. Le dispositif s’avere une maniere pour les participants des ateliers de s’emparer des arenes de debat que constituent les ateliers : la discussion montre qu’il s’agit d’une forme de « debordement » du dispositif scientifique, au service de l’appropriation de la politique publique.

Cahiers Agricultures, 2018

The paper emphasizes key lessons learnt about a research intervention implemented from 2006 to 20... more The paper emphasizes key lessons learnt about a research intervention implemented from 2006 to 2009 to solve water access conflicts in the Klaten irrigated rice production area (Central Java, Indonesia). To make stakeholders’ involvement easier, to empower them and build their capacity, action research was carried out according to a flexible and iterative approach. Each step involved a cycle of diagnosis, action planning, implementation, evaluation and learning. The paper shows the need to facilitate the functioning of a multi-stakeholder platform through the creation of a monitoring mechanism in order to ensure, on the one hand, stakeholders’ involvement within the action-research process and on the other hand, foster brainstorming and mutual learning among participants. The paper brings to the fore the usefulness of assessing findings of multidisciplinary and participatory appraisals through modeling and geo-referenced mapping tools in order to facilitate collective learning, nego...

Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation, 2014

This paper presents an agent-based spatial simulation of shifting cultivation applied to savannah... more This paper presents an agent-based spatial simulation of shifting cultivation applied to savannah landscape in North-Cameroon (Duupa ethnic community). The model is based on empirical rules and was developed by a team who seek to create interdisciplinary dynamics by combining domain specific approaches to the same subject. The manner in which the model is described in this paper reflects the interdisciplinary processes that guided its development. It is made up of four domain-specific modules-demography, agriculture, savannah regrowth and social rules-which converge to form a fifth one, i.e., the evolution of the mosaic of cultivated fields. The focus is on how the spatial organization of landscapes results of environmental and social interactions. Two scenarios are presented in this paper. The first simulates the transformation of savannah woodland into a shifting cultivation savannah landscape. The second simulates changes in the landscape and socio-demographic structure of a Duupa village over a 60-year period. The simulation results are used to identify some of the key aspects of the socio-environmental interactions and help to explain why at large spatial scales and over a long period of time, the composition and structure of a landscape appear rather stable. For instance, it is well known that demography plays a key role in both social and environmental dynamics of shifting cultivation systems. Yet, in the case of the Duupa system, we show that social resilience can be acquired through interactions between demographic cycles of rising and falling population levels and a socioeconomic redistribution system. Finally, we compare the model developed with other shifting cultivation models and provide some insights on future developments.

Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 2003

In the frame of using models to promote dialogue among stakeholders, we are interested in modelli... more In the frame of using models to promote dialogue among stakeholders, we are interested in modelling representations as a mean to share viewpoints and opinions. A first trend for modelling representations uses socio-cognitive theories as frameworks for modelling. This ...