Laurent LespezUniversité Paris-Est Créteil Val de Marne - Université Paris 12 | UPEC · Département de Géographie & Laboratoire de Géographie Physique CNRS
Laurent Lespez
Professor
Université Paris-Est Créteil Val de Marne Département de Géographie & Laboratoire de Géographie Physique du CNRS, Thiais
About
254
Publications
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Introduction
My work is focused on fluvial systems and more particularly on the reconstruction of past environment dynamics. My work is resolutely pluridisciplinary. The focus on nature/society interactions led me early on to collaborate with palaeoenvironmentalists and with social scientists. My scientific activity has involved geographic (Aegean world, NW France, Paris, W Africa, S-E Asia, USA) and thematic mobility: from geomorphology to holitic studies of restoration projects.
Additional affiliations
January 2019 - present
LGP CNRS UMR 8591
Position
- Deputy director
September 2016 - present
September 2013 - present
Université Paris-Est Créteil Val de Marne
Position
- Professor (Full)
Education
October 1993 - January 1999
September 1991 - June 1992
September 1989 - June 1991
Publications
Publications (254)
This article assesses the long-term hydro-sedimentary and ecological consequences of the urban pressure around Paris over the last 3000 years on the M erantaise river. Using a geoarchaeological approach combining sedimentological, geochemical, palynological and geophysical investigations enabled us to identify the transformations of the hydrosystem...
The dam removal movement is resulting in numerous projects worldwide, especially in Western countries. Whether completed or in progress, these undertakings often trigger conflict. Nearly 30 years after the initiation of the first major projects, this article examines the conditions for the local appropriation of dam removal projects. From the persp...
Greece is recognized worldwide for its archeological remains. These bear witness of a long human history, from the early stages of the Neolithization of Europe, ca. 8500 years ago, to the apogee of city-states in ancient Greece. This early occupation by populations of farmers and stock breeders had a long-term impact on the environment. Deforestati...
En géographie, l'étude de l'environnement n’a cessé de se renouveler : si elle couvre toujours la dimension biophysique de la nature, elle intègre également les dimensions sociales qui interagissent en permanence avec les composantes biologiques et physiques, et interroge le rôle des interactions complexes et hybridées dans la construction des ques...
Fruit du travail d’un collectif interdisciplinaire de chercheuses et chercheurs du Réseau des Zones Ateliers, cette communication porte sur la mise en oeuvre des projets de restauration de la continuité écologique des cours d’eau. Les projets de restauration se trouvent au coeur d’une importante controverse dans l’espace public français depuis plus...
Projects aiming at restoration of ecological river connectivity are at the centre of an important controversy taking place in the French public arena for several years. The implementation of the national restoration policy is being put into question by several actors. Basing upon the work of an interdisciplinary group of researchers of the French L...
La réflexion sur les temporalités des liens nature-société a occasionné de riches travaux au sein des différentes disciplines des sciences humaines et sociales (SHS) dès les années 1970. En dressant une historiographie des temps de la nature dans les SHS, en insistant sur les controverses et sur les résultats conceptuels (anthroposystème, héritage,...
The understanding of cultural dynamics at work at the end of the Final Pleistocene in West Africa suffers from a significant lack of excavated and dated sites, particularly in the Sahelian and Sudanian ecozones. While the Later Stone Age shows varied behavioral developments in different parts of the continent, the chrono-cultural framework of this...
The long history of the Sélune valley offers an interesting insight into the ecological restoration project of today. The removal of the dams on the Sélune, which is the largest project to restore ecological continuity in Europe, promises to disrupt the territorial organization. The construction of the dams at the beginning of the 20th century was...
Cet article de synthèse, fruit du travail d’un collectif interdisciplinaire de chercheuses et chercheurs du Réseau des Zones Ateliers françaises (CNRS), porte sur la mise en œuvre des projets de restauration de la continuité écologique des cours d’eau. Les projets de restauration se trouvent au cœur d’une importante controverse dans l’espace public...
Le stade isotopique 2 (29,000-11,700 BP) est la phase climatique aride et instable qui précède la mise en place de l'Holocène. Dans plusieurs régions d'Afrique, cette phase est marquée par un hiatus sédimentaire et/ou occupationnel, en particulier pendant le Dernier Maximum Glaciaire (26,500-19,000 BP). L'extrême aridité qui caractérise cette pério...
The study was conducted in the southern part of the lower Strymon valley, in northern Greece, and revealed up to 25 m of fluvio-lacustrine sediments deposited over the last seven millennia. This sedi-mentary record represents a significant opportunity for high-resolution palaeoenvironmental studies of the period from 6 to 3 ka cal BP linked to land...
Dam removal has become one of the most widespread tools for river restoration; however, these projects can be conflictual. Our aim in this paper is to question the disconnection between the ecological project and the territorial project and to evaluate its role in the emergence of conflicts. Conceptually, we draw on a hydrosocial territory perspect...
The Pleistocene to Holocene sedimentary sequence of the Falémé Valley, eastern Senegal, is one of the rare contexts in West Africa documenting the Paleolithic. Here, the Middle Stone Age (MSA) to Later Stone Age (LSA) transition seems to occur between the end of MIS 3 and the beginning of the Holocene, a period during which several successive techn...
Shifting cultivation is widely practiced in many tropical mountainous watersheds. Agricultural practices are changing with the intensification of activities and the development of industrial monocultures associated with increasing land use and the use of pesticides and fertilisers. These changes have consequences for the evolution of sediment trans...
Morphological adjustment mechanisms and controls of small urban rivers are rarely studied especially in France. We propose an original hydrogeomorphological approach based on a detailed study of a whole catchment using field data acquired systematically all along the river: (i) channel cross‐sections; (ii) riffle‐pool sequences and (iii) obstacles...
La mission archéologique menée en 2021 dans le cadre du projet « Peuplement humain et paléoenvironnement en Afrique – Projet Falémé » a eu lieu entre le 7 décembre 2020 et le 10 avril 2021 au Sénégal oriental, dans la vallée de la Falémé, après une phase de préparation administrative et logistique à Bamako au Mali. Elle s’est terminée à Dakar par d...
Après avoir été au cœur de la géographie française durant toute la première moitié du XXe siècle, la géomorphologie s'est profondément renouvelée en même temps que la discipline géographique, entre les années 1970 et 1990, avec l’apparition d’une géomorphologie dynamique et quantitative de plus en plus appliquée. Cette tendance s’est affirmée et re...
Over the past decade, the increasing wealth of new archaeological data on the Middle Stone Age (MSA) in Senegal and Mali has broadened our understanding of West Africa's contributions to cultural developments. Within the West African sequence, the phase of Marine Isotope Stage 3 (MIS 3, ca. 59-24 ka) yielded so far the best known and extensive arch...
Suburban streams often considered as our least restorable ecosystems but in fact constitute an important part of the hydrographic network in megalopolis and crucial environmental infrastructures for future urban development. Numerous studies have highlighted the dramatic hydrogeomorphological and ecological alterations due to the hydrological conse...
Hommage collectif.
Dans le cadre du programme de recherche sur le mégalithisme sénégambien (Dir. H. Bocoum et L. Laporte), des recherches visent à documenter le cadre environnemental précis dans lequel se sont développées les civilisations contemporaines. Pour cela, il faut faire appel à des données obtenues dans les archives sédimentaires continentales qui permetten...
La mission de terrain 2020 dans la Vallée de la Falémé, Sénégal oriental, avait pour objectif de documenter plus précisément les dynamiques d’occupation les plus anciennes, de l’Acheuléen au Middle Stone Age ; de mettre en évidence le passage, encore mal compris, des derniers chasseurs-cueilleurs aux sociétés productrices ; de préciser la variabili...
Dam removal represents one of the most emblematic operations of the ecological restoration of rivers. Developed in the United States of America in the 1990s, dam removal has become a major practice to achieve the “good ecological status” of water bodies required by the European Union (EU) Water Framework Directive (WFD) in France. However, ecologic...
A geomorphological survey immediately west of the Minoan town of Malia (Crete) shows that a tsunami resulting from the Bronze Age Santorini eruption reached the outskirts of the Palatial center. Sediment cores testify a unique erosional event during the Late Minoan period, followed locally by a high energy sand unit comprising marine fauna. This co...
Conflicts over dam removal have attracted substantial scholarly attention over the past years, although this research has generally focused on evaluating local-scale conflicts. Far less is known about the role of institutional frameworks in shaping conflicts at regional and national scales. We complement and extend this discussion by highlighting t...
The Ravin Blanc I archaeological occurrence, dated to MIS 5, provides unprecedented data on the Middle Stone Age (MSA) of West Africa since well-contextualized archaeological sites pre-dating MIS 4/3 are extremely rare for this region. The combined approach on geomorphology, phytolith analysis, and OSL date estimations offers a solid framework for...
Published table 1, in table format for more clarity.
From: Douze et al. 2021. A West African Middle Stone Age site dated to the beginning of MIS 5: Archaeology, chronology, and paleoenvironment of the Ravin Blanc I (eastern Senegal). Journal of Human Evolution, 154, 102952.
À l’ère de l’Anthropocène, la transformation de la nature matérielle par les sociétés est de mieux en mieux assimilée. De nombreuses recherches proposent ainsi d’envisager la nature contemporaine comme le résultat de l’hybridation de la nature et de la culture. Mais que sont les hybrides et quelle place doit-on leur accorder ? L’examen du concept e...
The end of the Palaeolithic represents one of the least-known periods in the history of western Africa, both in terms of its chronology and the identification of cultural assemblages entities based on the typo-technical analyses of its industries. In this context, the site of Fatandi V offers new data to discuss the cultural pattern during the Late...
Dans la Plaine de Caen, les études paléoenvironnementales interdisciplinaires montrent un problème de divergence de représentativité spatiale et temporelle dans la corrélation des données hors-sites et intrasites du Néolithique. Pour appréhender finement les interactions entre changements environnementaux et développement des pratiques agricoles, d...
The site of Malia, on the northwest coast of Crete is stimulating for geoarchaeological research. A Minoan palatial town developed during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages in an area that was occupied for a long time, and has been the subject of archaeological excavations for a century. A small wetland located near the sea and close to the archaeolog...
Les études menées le long de la Falémé, affluent du Sénégal, dans le secteur Sansandé-Missira, permettent de se faire une idée assez précise de la stratigraphie des formations sédimentaires qui se dévoilent à la faveur de l’incision récente du cours d’eau. Les datations OSL calent l’essentiel de ces dépôts du dernier cycle climatique, avec une très...
La vallée de la Falémé (Sénégal Oriental) fait l'objet de recherches paléoenvironnementales et archéologiques depuis 2012. Le potentiel des archives sédimentaires concernant l'étude des trois derniers millénaires est maintnenat avéré, particulièrement dans les ravins latéraux de la vallée principale. Le style méandriforme de la Falémé offre de larg...
Dans le cadre du projet Peuplement humain et paléoenvironnement en Afrique, coordonné
par l’un des auteurs (É.H.) et financé par le Fonds National Suisse de la recherche
scientifique (FNS), la Fondation Suisse-Liechtenstein pour les Recherches Archéologiques
à l’Étranger (SLSA), l’Agence Nationale de la Recherche française (ANR) et la
Faculté des S...
Sixty modern surface samples collected from mosses in different cypress forest communities (Cupressus sempervirens L.) on the island of Crete (Greece) were analysed for their pollen content. The samples were taken from six different cypress phytosociological associations between 23 and 1600 m asl, and fall within distinct rainfall and temperature r...
Trying to model a rural society, and even more so a past and disappeared rural society, is a dangerous task in the sense that we deal with the complexity of a whole society whatever the purpose of the model, to integrate and/or to simplify in a proper manner. This article deals with this complexity mainly by exploring the least risky way to apprehe...
Through the example of a project for the removal of two hydroelectric dams of 16 and 36 metres in height spanning the Sélune River, this article examines the importance of the landscape in such a project and in the discussions concerning its implementation. The removal of obstacles spanning a river leads to a major reconfiguration of river environm...
Through the example of a project for the removal of two hydroelectric dams of 16 and 36 metres in height spanning the Sélune River, this article examines the importance of the landscape in such a project and in the discussions concerning its implementation. The removal of obstacles spanning a river leads to a major reconfiguration of river environm...
Landscape evolution from the Early 1st millennium BCE to the mid-1st millennium CE is poorly documented around major archaeological sites in Crete. In a previous publication, the general landscape configuration in the vicinity of ancient Phaistos was reconstructed using a palaeoenvironmental approach, from the Proto-Palatial period (ca. 2000BCE) to...
Many societal and environmental changes occurred between the 2nd millennium BC and the middle of the 2nd millennium AD in western Africa. Key amongst these were changes in land use due to the spread and development of agricultural strategies, which may have had widespread consequences for the climate, hydrology, biodiversity, and ecosystem services...
As part of the Changing the Face of the Mediterranean Project, we consider how human pressure and concomitant erosion has affected a range of Mediterranean landscapes between the Neolithic and, in some cases, the post-medieval period. Part of this assessment comprises an investigation of relationships among palaeodemographic data, evidence for vege...
In West Africa, most palaeoenvironmental studies have focused on the role of climatic change on the environment. Because of the richness of its deposits, the Yamé River (Mali), a tributary of the Niger River, offers an opportunity to reconstruct the evolution of this fluvial system in comparison with both climatic and anthropogenic changes during t...
The Sangsurière marsh is located in the regional nature park of the Cotentin and Bessin marshes. The park was created in 1991 mainly because of the large biodiversity existing in its wet areas. The aim of our research is to study :
1/ the history of the wet areas formation ; 2/ the respective role of natural and anthropogenic factors in the formati...
Many societal and environmental changes occurred from the 2nd millennium BC
to the middle of the 2nd millennium AD in western Africa. Key amongst these
were changes in land use due to the spread and development of agricultural strategies,
which may have had widespread consequences for the climate, hydrology,
biodiversity, and ecosystem services of...
As part of the Changing the Face of the Mediterranean Project, we consider how human pressure and concomitant erosion has affected a range of Mediterranean landscapes between the Neolithic and, in some cases, the post-medieval period. Part of this assessment comprises an investigation of relationships among palaeodemographic data, evidence for vege...
L'âge du Bronze, entre 2300 et 800 avant notre ère, est une période charnière qui nous permet de rentrer de plain-pied dans l'histoire. À cette époque, des bateaux chargés de marchandises voguent sur la Manche, participant à une florissante économie transmanche avec l'Angleterre. Le territoire national, et plus particulièrement la Normandie, est un...
The aim of this paper is to present the preliminary results of the study of a Recent Holocene sedimentary sequence located in the Falémé valley in Eastern Senegal (West Africa). Geomorphological prospections and archeological excavations are performed in this area since 2011. So far the research allowed an understanding of the valley geometry and t...
The paucity of modern pollen rain data from the Aegean islands is a significant barrier to understand the late Quaternary vegetation history of this globally important south-eastern Mediterranean region. This paper presents the study of 30 modern pollen and non-pollen palynomorph assemblages carried out along an altitudinal gradient from 0 to 2453...
