[PhD student] Noémie Laborie: Supporting the transformation of an agro-ecosystem for a sustainable management of the commons

Supporting the transformation of an agro-ecosystem for a sustainable management of the commons. The case of the relationships between water management, sanitary risks and quinoa production practices on the Bolivian Altiplano

I'm an agricultural engineer with a degree from VetAgro Sup, where I specialized in "Agriculture, Environment, Health and Territory". I also have a degree in ethnology and anthropology.
To address the relationships between water management, health risks and quinoa production practices in Bolivia, I'll be looking to foster the emergence of a shared vision between stakeholders to promote collective management of the commons (resources, goods, but also common ills such as health problems and pollution).
pollution). This is the catalytic role that this support must play, using mediation tools, including digital ones, to enable stakeholders to
to take a long-term view. The approach aims to produce knowledge, but also to support collective decision-making through the participative design of a territorial model, as well as its evaluation and exploration by local stakeholders.
The results expected at the end of my thesis are the collaborative design of a multi-agent model and its collective exploration via hybrid simulations enabling the exploration of a diversity of scenarios and distant time horizons.

• Starting date: 1st October 2021
• University: University of Montpellier
• PhD school: GAIA
• Scientific field: Participatory modelling, digital humanities, agronomy, anthropology, geography, sociology, management science
• Thesis management: Pierre Bommel, UMR Sens, Cirad
• Thesis supervisors: Pierre Bommel, UMR Sens, Cirad – William’s Daré, UMR Sens, Cirad – Emeline Hassenforder, UMR G-eau, Cirad
• Funding: #DigitAg – Agropolis Fondation (projet Wasaca)
• #DigitAg : Cofunded thesis  – Axe 6 : Modélisation et simulation (systèmes de production agricole), Axe 1 : Impact des technologies de l’information et de la communication sur le monde rural, Axe 2 : Innovations en agriculture numérique, Axe 4 : Système d’information, stockage et transfert de données, Challenge 6 : La gestion des territoires agricoles, Challenge 1 : Le challenge agroécologique, Challenge 8 : Développement agricole au Sud

Mots-clés :  Multi-agent model, Participatory modelling, Interactive simulation, Social equity, Quinoa, Water, Commons

Résumé : This thesis is part of the Wasaca project (Wastewater irrigation: a sustainable agriculture adaptation to climate changes over the Bolivian Altiplano?) funded by Agropolis Fundation. In the framework of WP3 ("Engaging stakeholders in the adoption of sustainable agricultural practices"), the topic aims to set up a participatory modeling approach called "ComMod" around the availability of water resources, linked to environmental and health issues, to collectively consider sustainable trajectories for 2050 and 2100. ComMod favors role-playing games, which limits the temporal exploration of simulations. However, the technical originality of this thesis is based on the use of hybrid simulations by allowing participants to interact with a digital simulator and to project themselves over the long term. Its objective is to determine what are the necessary conditions for the participatory modeling approach to allow a sustainable transformation of the management of commons, here applied to a specialized socio-agroecosystem for the production of quinoa. A critical posture is proposed to respond to the issues of social equity and to take into account power asymmetries. In terms of the stakes involved in the science-society dialogue, the approach will facilitate interactions between scientists and local actors, who can share their knowledge, jointly build scenarios and collectively consider solutions or new forms of organization to strengthen the management of commons. Innovative tools will be mobilized and developed to help the collective management of this territory by promoting the transparency of the approach and the information produced. The societal purpose is sought through the appropriation of the approach and tools by the actors, which will guarantee the continuity of the project. The design and implementation of computer tools will go hand in hand with work in the social sciences, which requires a strong involvement in the field and with farmers' organizations, as well as the participation of the actors and other researchers of the project. This places the PhD student, de facto, in a voluntarily interdisciplinary approach.

Social networks: LinkedIn – ResearchGate

Contact : noemie.laborie@cirad.fr​ - Tel: 06.41.80.17.43