The dynamics of sediment fluxes in the fluvial and marine environments are still poorly known, particularly at a regional scale. Measurement techniques as well as numerical models still require research in order to assess these fluxes from their continental source to the shelf edge; this reseach would also benefit from improved and shared monitoring networks. SunRISE gathers a large community of French and European research laboratories, consulting companies and governing agencies in order to address i) climate change related issues, particularly in the current context of coastal vulnerability, ii) European Directives issues, for which pertinent state indicators and monitoring strategies have to be developed. SunRISE is organized around 5 worpackages (WP) aiming at identifying which are the priority research topics to address in order to tackle the following issues : “sediment fluxes at a regional scale in a changing climate”, and “definition of state indicators for the physical parameters describing the marine environment”. WP1 will define the priority processes to account for, WP2 will define the necessary innovations in terms of observation, WP3 will investigate the various modelling approaches, WP4 will work on the research needed in order to come up with state indicators. The last WP is transversal and will help define the main orientations of projects to be designed to answer 2016 ANR and/or H2020 calls for proposals. The financial support sought from the ANR will contribute to fund workshops aiming at writing these projects. The originality of this network lies in the fact that it will bring together Frecnh and European teams working at defining integrative descriptors of the physical regional and coastal environment. Such a structure is essential in order to lead coordinated action at the European level, in particular in the framework of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). The strong participation of European partners (who accepted to lead three of the five WPs on their own budgets) illustrates this initiative relevance.

Although urban floods were largely investigated, the flow exchanges between streets and buildings are not documented in the laboratory and seldom in the field. DEUFI project will fill this gap focusing on the hydraulic processes inside and outside one building and assessing how this knowledge can be useful to estimate and reduce damages and fatalities. The influence of the building openings along the streets is local but can diffuse to the general pattern of the flow propagation. Three scales are investigated for hydrodynamics purposes: the facade (including one or several openings such as doors, gates...), the block (built-up area surrounded by streets and including one or several buildings) and the district (including several streets and a lot of blocks). Information provided at one of these scales permits to estimate the level of risk and to take decisions about flood risk management at the individual or collective scales. At the façade scale, the calculation of the flow discharge through the openings is emphasized being the first step to evaluate the influence of these exchanges. At the block scale, the difference between flood hazard inside and outside the building is put forward particularly for damage assessment but the opening is also creating a disturbance in the flood hazard in the neighbouring streets, which may be important for safety evaluation. At the district scale, one investigates the flow propagation and its uncertainty because of the exchange between streets and buildings but also because of other factors; strategy for flood management should be elaborated from results at that scale. DEUFI project is structured in three work packages combining hydraulics, damage estimation and citizen approaches: laboratory experiments (WP1), field cases (WP2) and hydrodynamic models (WP3). WP1 gathers three sets of laboratory experiments using existing facilities and dealing with urban flow patterns at the facade, block and district scales respectively. WP2 focuses on two field cases in order to apply the developed methods on real configurations that differ by the geographical environment (origin of flooding, slopes …). WP2 groups the development of tools (software, data base …) at the field scale and the application of these tools on the two field cases in view of evaluating the relevancy for local stakeholders. WP3 develops hydrodynamic models that permit to pass from the laboratory scale to the field scale, validates them against WP1 results and compares their efficiency to produce results on the field cases useful for local stakeholders. DEUFI project will end-up with improved urban flood simulation methods capable of (i) estimating the flow intrusion within built-up areas, (ii) evaluating the spatial distribution of human exposure and material damage and (iii) proposing best-practice recommendations, in relation with the citizen perception and behaviour during short duration high floods. In order to reach these objectives, DEUFI project associates seven French partners dealing with hydraulics, economy, geography, sociology, hydrology, applied mathematics and computer sciences together with two foreign teams involved in related researches in their own countries. The diffusion of DEUFI results will benefit of the close coordination with local population and authorities as well as the participation of a consultancy company accustomed to building and disseminating research results.

Optimization is what you do if you run out of on innovative ideas. Current practice in integrated water management predominantly use multi-objective optimization approaches with aggregated objectives. This biases results towards the status quo and against innovative solutions, can foster stakeholder resistance, while also raising ethical concerns related to the inclusion of undesirable and/or hidden trade-offs1. In contrast, many-objectives optimization approaches can consider many non-aggregated objectives, which has the potential to enrich the solution space with alternative courses of action that better reflect the diverging perspectives of stakeholders, and align better with ethical concerns. From the viewpoint of ethics, disaggregated assessment criteria are preferred as these may avoid undesirable and hidden trade-offs. Apart from some pioneering studies in economics and reliability engineering, no methods currently exist that are specifically aim to avoid such undesirable trade-offs. Here many-objective approaches to optimization and decision making offer a promising way-forward. Water resources management increasingly relies on integrated models to analyses the socio-economic benefits of the scarce resource. These models typically connect sectoral water uses to water resources, and to performance indicators. These integrated models offer great potential in enabling more sustainable management of water resources. Currently these advances in modelling are however in many cases not exploited because their outputs are evaluated using multi-objective optimization on pre-maturely aggregated objective functions that cancel out the potential advantages of these integrated models in unpredictable ways. In the context of Integrated Water Resources Management, many-objective approaches offer greater opportunities to handle the many non-aggregated objectives that arise from sectoral integration. In the face of climate change and growing water scarcity the expansion of the solution space and the identification of innovative strategies for water management issues that many-objective approaches have on offer is of great relevance. For dissemination and implementation it is important that these innovations do not only offer methodological improvements for water managers, but specifically address the innovative characteristics of solutions, the improved alignment with the interests of stakeholders, as well as producing solutions that are ethically more just. The promise of the many-objectives methods regarding alternative courses of action is especially relevant under conditions of climate change and socio-economic developments and a growing emphasis on sustainability and inclusiveness in addition to efficiency and effectiveness. The virtues of many-objective approaches have barely reached current practice in water management in Europe and beyond. To realize the promise this research operationalizes many-objective approaches for water management and contrasts them to existing practices. The project develops, operationalizes, and incorporates many-objective optimization in existing regional water management models. In close collaboration with local stakeholders and water managers. We apply both existing multi-objective methods and collaboratively developed many-objective approaches and compare and contrast the strategies that emerge from both as a concrete contribution to practice. Our contribution to science focusses on the validity of the many-objective hypotheses for water management. Finally for our project partners in our case study areas, we deliver operational models and software for implementation in daily management and decision making practice. Our case studies cover water management practices under divers climatic, hydrological, soil and socio-economic condition encountered in current and climate change affected Europe and beyond, and serve to disseminate innovated practices.

The multitude of complex urban systems, combined with the autonomous of structuring technical systems (hard-wired telecommunications networks, radio, television, mobile communications, rail and other transport networks, water and waste water networks, energy networks, etc.), together with the numerous territorial service organisation and governance levels (city, grouped cities, departmental, regional, state and European levels), induce major malfunctions when problems are encountered. The numerous interactions between these various systems further increase global fragility, even where this multiplicity could be put to good use to transform it into redundancy and the development of interoperability. Any such malfunction is increasingly rejected by urban populations, numerous as they are and widely differing in social and cultural terms, stressed by their day to day environment and fre-quently requiring and expressing substantial expectations in regard to this environment from both the technical, social and human points of view. Globally, the urban system, in common with each of the individual systems on which it is based, is potentially vulnerable to the hazards associated with climate change, natural and technological risks or malevolent acts. These hazards are not new in themselves, but what is new is their frequency and intensity. Despite their different causes, the consequences of these events, in particular in regard to a return to a balanced situation regarded as equivalent to the preceding situation, are of the same nature (interrupted service, destruction, etc.) which is why they can be integrated in the same approach. The main objective of the RESILIS project will consequently be to propose ways and means for reducing the vulnerability of the system and facilitating the recommencement and continuity of activities. Using a long-term oriented systemic approach, we shall firstly be seeking both organisational and methodological responses with the aim of 1) creating synergetic governance of all levels; 2) adopting long-term, responsible management of the networks; 3) devising new design rules for technological tools and 4) and obtaining, by information and suitably adapted awareness enhancement, a positive contribution from populations and the economic players. Importance will also be attached to the predictability angle as, at the current time, predictability levels for systems in the event of a hazardous situation are extremely low, and correct anticipation of the reactions of complex systems is extremely difficult. It will consequently be necessary to extend our knowledge of both threats, initiator effects and weak signals. We shall take the human dimension into account as, through its imagination, adaptability and will to win, mankind can, provided the objectives are clear, overcome certain inadequacies of generic direc-tives and on occasions excessively complex engineering. The consortium set up for the RESILIS project, associating three leading French engineering entities engaged in substantial activities at international level, and research centres of repute both in France and other countries, has brought together the skills and expertise required to establish answers to questions emanating from the project call. This will lead to establishment of the foundations for urban resilience engineering designed to support the decision makers, economic players and populations in the development of genuine urban resilience.