ROM: Seismo-volcanic, tsunami and hydro-climatic risks in overseas France.

Project funded by the French Agence Nationale de la Recherche (ANR), under grant “ANR-22-EXIR-0005 (project ROM)”

The PC Outermer project focuses on the intense and frequent telluric and hydro-meteorological hazards faced by overseas and intertropical populations, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis, gravity instabilities, flooding/submersions and coastal erosion in connection with cyclones and climate change. It is essential to take into account the geographical and societal particularities of overseas and intertropical areas (distance from the hexagone, insularity, lack of connection and size of territories, high proportion of the total population of the territory exposed to one or more hazards, diversity of cultural and historical practices, social and political tensions), which require a specific understanding of local capacities for risk prevention and management, as well as adaptation and resilience. Innovative management strategies therefore need to be developed and tested in terms of feasibility/acceptability/inclusivity, taking into account the political and social status of these territories.

Knowledge of telluric and hydrometeorological hazards, and of the vulnerabilities of these territories, is essential because of the active observation conditions they offer, and above all in order to meet the challenges of risk and crisis management. However, all our scientific achievements show that there are still limits to our ability to detect changes in the phase of activity as early as possible, to the resilience of our networks, and to our capacity to develop integrated risk management models that can characterize the issues and assess their vulnerability to different hazards. The risks to which overseas populations are exposed need to be reconsidered in order to accurately qualify and model cascading phenomena and forcing processes, and the superposition of hazards and vulnerabilities on the same territories, in order to reduce the consequences of major disasters and help develop relevant risk and resilience policies.

This project aims to:

1. Identify new observables for the study of natural hazards and their anthropogenic impact on large spatio-temporal scales.
2. Develop holistic and integrated models of complex processes, taking into account the uncertainties associated with climate change projections and the integration of coupled predictive models.
3. To develop integrated risk management strategies adapted to overseas and intertropical areas, and capable of dealing with the consequences of extreme and cascading events that induce multiple risks (eruptions, instabilities, tsunamis, floods).

In WP1, we will focus on the development of innovative drilling instrumentation to study seismo-volcanic hazards. Our focus will be on the French West Indies (where the Montagne Pelée volcano in Martinique has been undergoing a phase of reactivation in recent years). In WP2, we’ll be working on estimating the damage and socio-economic impact of tsunami hazards, applying our methodologies to Mayotte in the Indian Ocean. WP3 will focus on hydro-climatic risks in the Pacific, and more specifically on cyclonic crisis management (marine submersions, landslides) in New Caledonia and on the adaptation of coral islands to the effects of climate change (coastal erosion) in French Polynesia.