Earth

16/06/20

[Meet a scientist] Moagabo Ragoasha: once an IRD scholarship holder, now an oceanographer in the SA-France network

Moagabo Ragoasha has just defended her PhD and is now a qualified South African physical oceanographer. Thanks to the IRD scholarship program, she had the opportunity to share her PhD time between France and South Africa. Let’s have a chat with her so she can share her experience with us!

05/06/20

Roundtable on Air Pollution

Air pollution by fine particles is a global issue. It is the main health risk and the main cause of non-communicable diseases, the second largest contributor to global warming (just after CO2), and with quantities of fine particles arriving in the ocean more than twice the amount of plastic waste...

14/05/20

Fire smoke from South America reaches the Namibian coast

A team of scientists conducted an analysis of the aerosol composition over the Namibian coast. The atmosphere contains smoke coming from biomass fires in Angola and also South America.

11/05/20

We found high UV doses at high-altitude hiking trails in Reunion and Cape Town

Ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun is important for life on earth and especially for humans.

19/03/20

[Meet a scientist] Pierrick Penven, the ocean at heart

Pierrick Penven and South Africa share a long history. The scientist has been studying the currents bordering the country for more than 20 years. We met him during his last visit in Cape Town, at the crossing of three oceans.

21/02/20

Mikoko project: mangrove conservators and local leaders gathered for a one-week training course

The National Museum of Gede (Kilifi County) hosted the first training course organized by the Mikoko project on mangrove forest conservation and restauration from February 18th to 21st.

18/02/20

Extreme solar UV radiation exposure in Cape Town

[Research result] Study shows the danger for Capetonians and tourists visiting Table Mountain.

14/01/20

Franco-Vietnamese meeting on environmental protection at MOFA

06/01/20

A better estimate of water-level rise in the Ganges delta

For the first time, scientists have provided reliable regional estimates of land subsidence and water-level rise in the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna delta. Depending on the region of the delta, water-level rise could reach 85 to 140 cm by 2100. The work, published in PNAS on 6 January 2020 by...

03/01/20

Early modern humans cooked starchy food, 170 thousand years ago (Wits University)

PRESS RELEASE - WITS UNIVERSITY French - South African study involving CNRS researcher The discovery also points to food being shared and the use of wooden digging sticks to extract the plants from the ground. “The inhabitants of the Border Cave in the Lebombo Mountains on the Kwazulu-Natal/eSwatini...

18/12/19

Submarine cables: billions of potential seismic sensors!

Scientists have for the first time shown that it is possible to detect the propagation of seismic waves on the seafloor using submarine telecommunications cables. According to their observations, this existing infrastructure could be used to detect earthquakes, as well as swell and underwater noise...

18/11/19

Botswana's Okavango Delta is created by a delicate balance, but for how much longer?

This article on The Conversation Africa was co-signed by Dr Olivier Dauteuil, CNRS senior researcher at the University of Rennes and Dr Mike Murray-Hudson, Senior Research Fellow at the Okavango Research Institute, University of Botswana.

20/09/19

Combating climate change: a worthwhile investment

Investing to limit global warming to 1.5 °C between now and 2050 would cost four to five times less than repairing the harm that a 2 °C temperature increase would cause to people, ecosystems and infrastructures. This statistic comes from an international study to which IRD and CNRS researchers have...

11/09/19

The first Global Sustainable Development Report given to the Secretary-General of the United Nations

Achieving human well-being for all of the Earth’s people – expected to number eight and a half billion by 2030 - is still possible, but only if there is a fundamental - and urgent - change in the relationship between people and nature, according to a new United Nations report by an independent...

02/09/19

Desertification: meet the IRD's researchers at COP14

The 14th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification is being held in New Delhi (India) from 2 to 13 September with the theme "Restore Land, Sustain Future". The IRD's researchers and their partners are organising and participating in several events alongside...

07/08/19

Observed controls on resilience of groundwater to climate variability in sub-Saharan Africa

Groundwater – a vital source of water for drinking and irrigation across sub-Saharan Africa – is, to a certain extent, resilient to climate variability and change, according to a new study co-led by IRD with University College London and Cardiff University. The research published on August 7, 2019...

15/03/19

IRD, CIRAD and UNEP sign a cooperation framework agreement

IRD, CIRAD and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) have just signed a framework agreement for scientific cooperation during the One Planet Summit held in Nairobi (Kenya) on 14 March 2019. This multidisciplinary agreement concerns the major challenges of the global environment and...