"Water scarcity refers to long-term water imbalances, combining low water availability (exacerbated by climate change) with a level of water demand exceeding the supply capacity of the natural system. In 2020, the European Environmental Agency assesses that 1 387 groundwater bodies are currently affected by water abstraction. Poor quantitative status of groundwater resources increases tension among the water stakeholders may lead to negative impacts such as risk of public water shortages, poor crop yields or poor ecological status of surface water bodies This project aims at increasing the resiliency of Hauts-de-France toward climate change negative impacts on groundwater resources. It will focus on a specific chalk aquifer which supply 95% of the drinking water in Northern France. Specifically, we aim at carrying out this project in the Aronde watershed located in the Oise district which is affected by significant quantitative issues since 2000’s. The objectives of this project are to produce knowledge and tools for decision makers to improve the quantitative management of groundwater resources. We specifically aim at: - WP1: Improve the knowledge about the current water withdrawals from the groundwater to design maps of hot-spots of water withdrawals and identify the seasonality of water abstraction. This WP will be addressed with common tools of geospatial analysis embed in GIS software. - WP2: Predict the future water withdrawals due to crop irrigation and domestic use, based on the crop rotations and on the rate of urban expansion.This requires specific geospatial analysis. The rate of the urban expansion will be derived from past GIS and census bureau datasets. Determining the crop rotation will be based on successive years of Land Parcel Identification System GIS dataset. - WP3: Design a tool that can predict the dynamic of the groundwater depth depending on the current and future water withdrawals and the recharge by the precipitations (according to the climatic scenarios). To predict the vertical flow and assess the recharge process, several methods will be set up: - Analyze long meteorological datasets, - Perform isotopic tracing and pumping experiments on the UniLaSalle hydrogeological facility, - Improve existing model created by Zghibi et al. (2016). - WP4: Explore alternative solutions for artificial groundwater recharge, considering sanitary and environmental risks and writing good practices adapted to the local context. This will be based on a state of the art approach and visit of existing pilot sites in France. The consortium involves 3 partners with complementary skills: - Institut Polytechnique UniLaSalle (coordinator). The research group involved is AGHYLE that studies the critical zone by characterizing cycles of water and chemical elements to understand ecosystems and agrosystems functioning. AGHYLE accesses a hydrogeology facility equipped with boreholes to monitor the groundwater depth, or perform specific experiments and pumping tests. - Université Technologique de Compiègne, UTC. The consortium includes 2 research groups of UTC: ""Transformations Intégrées de la Matière Renouvelable"" (EA 4297 TIMR) and “Avenues”. They develop research activities on hydrological modelling, chemical engineering and water/soil and supply engineering. - Syndicat Mixte Oise Around. SMOA is a local board in charge of the management of the water resources in the Oise-Aronde watershed (788 km²). SMOA is specifically in charge of the Aronde watershed which suffer from excessive groundwater abstraction. This project aims at providing the following deliverables: - provide a predicting tool of water withdrawals and aquifer recharge to local decision makers and water management boards. - writing an action program to secure the public water supply and the crop irrigation. - writing good practices of aquifer artificial recharge adapted to the local context. - scientific dissemination (conference)."

Bioplastics are nowadays considered as a sustainable alternative to conventional polymers, especially for specific applications such as in agriculture which requires eco-friendly materials and, preferably, biodegradable polymers. EcoBioPlast will contribute to understand and to model the biotic and abiotic process of micro- and nano-bioplastics biodegradation and their impact on soil and aquatic ecosystems to conceive new efficient tools for integrated crop management, particularly for the development of more effective, stable, eco-friendly and with longer-acting plant protection products based on biocontrol agents. For this, EcoBioPlast will implement a multidisciplinary approach with the collaboration of two partners with expertise bio-based engineering polymers, plant biology, environmental microbiology and math expertises.

The Isoredu project consists in studying the resilience of computing systems in small companies, associations and local authorities. The activity of such actors rely on their digital apps and services. In case of failure or data losses, the consequences may be tragic for their business. In order to increase the resilience of computing system, we observe a trend to the externalization, mainly towards large international operators in the cloud. However, delegating its own computing system may have some drawbacks in terms of economic dependency (the cloud operator is in strong position), sovereignty (cloud operator may have to conform with foreign laws that do not guaranty the confidentiality), technology (the reversibility, that is the fact to stop with this operator, is complex), know-how (by not maintaining the required skill, how to face in case of crisis?) or infrastructure (the network has to be operational to reach the data). Externalization do improve the resiliency but this does not mean centralization nor dependency. To the contrary, resilience and non-dependency would encourage to build distributed local architectures that could ensure collectively their own resilience: in case a member fails, the others could supply. Moreover such architectures would have a lower impact on the environment and this is a crucial point. Indeed, computer architectures are concerned by the sustainability because they consume more and more energy, contributing themselves indirectly to some future crisis. In particular, the data-center model has to be questioned. The Isorédu project will focus on the relationship between resilience, dependency and sustainability. As a case study, it will consider data storage and will propose a distributed data saving solution for local partners standing together to face crisis. For this purpose, life-cycle assessment will be studied on the proposed solutions. The project is organized as follows: - organizing a network of local partners to study use cases; - defining a criteriology to characterize the non functional exigences of resilience, dependency and sustainability in order to deduce a methodology for designing resilient non-dependent and sustainable computing systems; - test the methodology and the approach by designing a prototype of distributed data saving solution dedicated to local partners ensuring jointly their resilience; - experiment this prototype in real situation in the aim of evaluation with the help of local partners.

One of the promising alternatives that can substitute fossil resources is the use of microbial oils. The strategies that can reduce their production costs include the engineering of high value-added fatty acids, the fermentation on a low-cost carbon substrate, and the transformation of oils into higher-value products. In this context, the YaLiOl project aims to propose a new oleochemical route based on odd-chain fatty acids (OCFA) produced by the yeast Yarrowia lipolytica. The core objectives of this project consist of 1) engineering Y. lipolytica for the production of OCFA, 2) the development of a fermentation medium based on sugar beet molasses, and 3) the recovery of OCFA, their characterization and their transformation into oleochemical derivatives for viscosity modifiers of lubricants and thermal energy storage. Pilot-scale production of oil and odd fatty acid esters will help rounding-up the financial study.

The Isoredu project consists in studying the resilience of computing systems in small companies, associations and local authorities. The activity of such actors rely on their digital apps and services. In case of failure or data losses, the consequences may be tragic for their business. In order to increase the resilience of computing system, we observe a trend to the externalization, mainly towards large international operators in the cloud. However, delegating its own computing system may have some drawbacks in terms of economic dependency (the cloud operator is in strong position), sovereignty (cloud operator may have to conform with foreign laws that do not guaranty the confidentiality), technology (the reversibility, that is the fact to stop with this operator, is complex), know-how (by not maintaining the required skill, how to face in case of crisis?) or infrastructure (the network has to be operational to reach the data). Externalization do improve the resiliency but this does not mean centralization nor dependency. To the contrary, resilience and non-dependency would encourage to build distributed local architectures that could ensure collectively their own resilience: in case a member fails, the others could supply. Moreover such architectures would have a lower impact on the environment and this is a crucial point. Indeed, computer architectures are concerned by the sustainability because they consume more and more energy, contributing themselves indirectly to some future crisis. In particular, the data-center model has to be questioned. The Isorédu project will focus on the relationship between resilience, dependency and sustainability. As a case study, it will consider data storage and will propose a distributed data saving solution for local partners standing together to face crisis. For this purpose, life-cycle assessment will be studied on the proposed solutions. The project is organized as follows: - organizing a network of local partners to study use cases; - defining a criteriology to characterize the non functional exigences of resilience, dependency and sustainability in order to deduce a methodology for designing resilient non-dependent and sustainable computing systems; - test the methodology and the approach by designing a prototype of distributed data saving solution dedicated to local partners ensuring jointly their resilience; - experiment this prototype in real situation in the aim of evaluation with the help of local partners.