Scientific issues

Societies experience major demographic, economic, technical, political and social evolutions which are accompanied by rapid changes in land cover and use, in access to resources and in the mutual pressures between man and its environment. Indeed the environment evolves in response to external natural (climate, biological fluxes...) and anthropic (land development, exploitation of resources, pollution...) pressures and according to their own biophysical processes.

Understanding the causes of these changes, controlling their impacts on societies and their natural environment, and, at the same time anticipating the resulting evolutions are the main challenges for environmental assessment. This requires developing knowledge on the environment, its functioning and the processes which affect it, to understand societal dynamics and their drivers, and to conceive modes of management, policies of sustainable development and frameworks for regulation. In such an approach, the spatial dimension of the environment and of the territories is fundamental and needs to be taken into account. This, at the same time, implies developing careful spatial and territorial approaches and controlling the spatial information from its acquisition and processing to its use, through its analysis, diffusion and appropriation.

Objective of the Geoinformation pillar

As the first cross-cutting methodological pillar of PEER, its first objective is to create permanent exchange between the research projects carried out in PEER institutes. It will also enable the sharing of knowledge and the design of common approaches, and will progressively create synergies and critical mass avoiding redundant work, thus contributing to the dynamic integration of the PEER institutes.