The fifth OZCAR Research Infrastructure Days were hold remotely from 18 to 21 January 2021.
Nearly 200 people registered and between 60 and 100 people attended the different sessions. About 50 people attended the two half-day workshops organised in a digital format.
As the topic of the annual days were ” From the critical zone to ecosystems “, two “grands témoins” were invited: Jérôme Chave (laboratory “Évolution et Diversité Biologique” / Evolution and Biological Diversity in Toulouse), a specialist in tropical ecology, and Véronique Gouy Boussada (RiverLy/Interdisciplinary research unit for the management and restoration of river systems and their catchments, ZABR, INRAE Lyon), which is expert on diffuse agricultural pollution and its impact on aquatic ecosystems.
As for previous years, the days have been the opportunity to review the activities carried out within the OZCAR RI over the past year.
Workshops were hold on the development of the Theia/OZCAR IS to assess the relevance of the search criteria on the data portal and to define the missing criteria.
In addition, there was a review of the projects launched in 2019 and 2020 in the framework of the WP4 on Transversal Themes, as well as the presentation and discussion of the new proposals received in the last call for ideas 2021.
This year, one of the OZCAR days was dedicated to the CRITEX Equipex project (2012-2022), as well as the presentation of the “TERRA FORMA” project : “Designing and testing the intelligent observatory of territories at the time of the Anthropocene”, led by Laurent Longuevergne, Géosciences Rennes and selected at the end of December in the “Equipex+” call for proposals (PIA3).
Instead of the traditional field trip, the Critical Zones exhibition at the ZKM in Karlsruhe was presented virtually with the presence of the philosopher Bruno Latour.
The last day was focused on the international activities, with a presentation by Steffen Zacharias (UFZ Leipzig) who is in charge of the standardisation and harmonisation of environmental monitoring in the European infrastructure eLTER-RI. Presentations were made on the activities in eLTER France and more particularly on an initiative aimed at structuring a LTSER (Long Term Socio-Ecological Research) platform between the OZCAR and RZA RIs, the Lautaret-Oisans site with Philippe Choler, Isabelle Arpin, Jean-Gabriel Valay and Jérôme Poulenard. Then, workshops were organised to discuss the opportunities of connections between these two complementary research infrastructures.
Finally, the third OZCAR price was awarded to an emblematic publication for the research work carried out on the critical zone by Virginie Sellier and her co-authors. The research deals with the impact of past mining activities on the supply of sediment to the lagoon in New Caledonia (project “IMMILA” – https://cnrt.nc/immila/).
You can find the programme, the presentations and the report here
The recordings of the main presentations are in the OZCAR YouTube channel and can be viewed here : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6jcypg3r2U-XOZoH1TXt-g