David Gaillard’s research while affiliated with University of Caen Normandy and other places

Spatial accessibility to health services is a key factor in terms of public health. Even though some tools are available, establishing accessibility criteria applicable from one geographic scale to another remains difficult. Therefore, we propose a method for creating a health accessibility index applicable on a large geographic scale, based on a methodology that overcomes the limitations of political-administrative divisions and which allows a multi-scalar approach to be implemented. The index highlights, on a national scale, areas of cumulative health disadvantages. This index of accessibility to health care combines accessibility and availability and can be adapted to many geographical scales. As accessibility can be understood in various dimensions, a score could be calculated for various fields such as education and culture. The index can help policymakers to identify under-endowed areas and find optimal locations. In terms of public health, it may be used to understand the mechanisms underlying geographic health disparities.

Soil erosion is one of the major environmental threats that is related to agricultural land use in France, especially in Normandy, where agricultural land occupies 65% of the territory. This region is located on a chalky plateau that is affected by the karst phenomena. One of the characteristics of this karst landscape is the low proportion of surface flows, where many basins do not have perennial streams but have dry valleys instead. Besides, this region is characterised by a continuous or sub-continuous loess cover, which remain significantly unsaturated soils. Additionally, Normandy is nationally recognised as being flood risk sensitive, and the land use and agricultural practices play an important role in this context. In dry valleys,

Research on risk and industrial catastrophes question the complexity theories. Besides the concepts of complexity which lead us to reconsider concepts of risk, hazard and vulnerability, we propose to think about more practical aspects, for example the modelling of human behaviour in crisis situations. The link between concepts as critical self-organization, emergence, bifurcation, and the methods in the Distributed Artificial Intelligence (DAI) used to model them is however difficult. In this paper, we present ongoing analysis on the key concepts of risk science, such as hazards and catastrophes. We propose to enrich them with complex systems theories. First, we present methodological perspectives of the DAI, for example multi-agent systems, and compare them with other simulation methods used in the context of risks. Secondly, we present the MOSAIIC model (Modelling and Simulation of Industrial Accidents by Individual-Based methods) which gives possibilities to simulate the behaviour of individuals during an industrial accident. The project and the MOSAIIC model aim to explore the effects of a major industrial accident on public health. For instance, the emission and the spread of a toxic gas in an urban environment may be a serious danger for the human health. Thus we propose to study the consequences of this type of event in order to reduce the vulnerability of the populations. In the model, we emphasize both on spatial and behavioral dimensions (ie. mobility and perception of risk). All these questions lead us to use different methodologies of analysis. For example, concerning mobility, the daily traffic can be simulated at a meso scale: a road axis for example. In that way, we aim to simulate the global dynamics of the network from the modelling of flows on arcs of the network (modulated according to the time of day and the day of week). Yet, we plan to use classical models (for instance equilibrium models) because they give an ”average image” of the flows of vehicles on the arcs. Based on this first structural mobility, it is then possible to consider ”a change of level” regarding both the representation and the analysis: if a risk occurs or if a specific context disrupts the structure. As a consequence, from a management of flows on the arc, we turn to an analysis of the individual behaviours in a multi-agent system.

Research on risk and industrial catastrophes question the complexity theories. Besides the concepts of complexity which lead us to reconsider concepts of risk, hazard and vulnerability, we propose to think about more practical aspects, for example the modelling of human behaviour in crisis situations. The link between concepts as critical self-organization, emergence, bifurcation, and the methods in the Distributed Artificial Intelligence (DAI) used to model them is however difficult.