Scientific objectives and research project

The aquatic realm at the interface between the continent and the ocean, encompassing estuaries, deltas, lagoons and the coastal ocean, is a key region for the Earth cycles of water, matter and biogeochemistry. The transports and flows there are characterized by a large variability, due to the variability of the forcings (river flows at the watershed outlet, wind, pressure, precipitation, air-sea fluxes and influence of the regional ocean circulation and tides) but also due to the interactions between the different processes. Human activities, such as agriculture, sand mining, construction and coastal development, add a further footprint to these variabilities in a cycle of actions and feedbacks that is still poorly understood both at local and global scales. The impact of all these processes and of their interactions on the coastal environments (e.g., coastline morphology, habitats for terrestrial and aquatic fauna), on water quality and health of the socioecosystems represents such a challenge for biodiversity and human societies that the scientific community urgently needs to mobilize different types of expertise in a transdisciplinary approach, using tools adapted to the complexity of the issues at stake. Group of INvestigation of the Continuum Continent Ocean (GINCCO) aims to create an international network of expertise on the hydrodynamics and biogeochemical processes based on a modeling approach. The network builds on existing expertise on numerical models (Symphonie, SCHISM, ECO3M-S, T-UGO and GAMA, models described in section and on existing collaborations between French laboratories and partners in Viet Nam, Thailand, Cameroon and Benin. More specifically, GINCCO aims to: • create a community on the modeling of the continent-ocean aquatic continuum, promoting dialogue between modelers, model users, other scientific communities and civil society, and who would publish together, and could build projects together targeting both advances in scientific knowledge and development of decision-support tools; • share knowledge, know-how and best practices and facilitate cooperation and mutual support on the use of the models, brainstorm on future developments, fostering innovation with a view to hybridization or coupling of models; • train students, mainly through PhD programs and participating in university training programs.

IRD units involved

Member Institutions

CNRS : Centre national de la recherche scientifique - France

IRD : Institut de recherche pour le développement

CNES : Centre national d'études spatiales

Chulalongkorn University

Institut de Recherches Halieutiques et Océanologiques du Bénin (IRHOB)

IMER : Institute of Marine Environment and Ressources

Institute of Oceanography

INRAe : Institut national de recherche pour l'agriculture, l'alimentation et l'environnement

Université de Douala

ULCO : Université du littoral de la Côte d'Opale

UT3 : Université Toulouse 3 Paul Sabatier

USTH : University of Science and Technology of Hanoi

Targeted Sustainable Development Goal(s)

ODD14 - VIE AQUATIQUE

ODD15 - VIE TERRESTRE

ODD17 - PARTENARIATS POUR LA REALISATION DES OBJECTIFS