PROJECTS

In the dichotomy between migrants and refugees/asylum-seekers, the former are typically cast as economically motivated, and set apart from refugees, fleeing war and persecution. Yet environmental changes are increasingly part of migration journeys, and count amongst the factors that call into question the distinction made between migrants and refugees. At the same time, in the international negotiations on climate change, migration is increasingly mooted as a possible adaptation strategy to the impacts of climate change. But only few studies exist as to how migration could actually work for adaptation, and none of them addresses migration in Belgium. This is the goal of this project, delineated into two parts. First, MIGRADAPT will look at the role of the environment as a driver for recent migration to Belgium. While it is unlikely that one could single out environmental changes as a key driver of migration to Belgium, except in exceptional cases, the project will rather attempt to provide an assessment on how migrants perceive the environment to have influenced their migration journey as well as how they perceive current environmental disruption in their countries of origin. Indeed, many countries of origin or of transit of migrants to Belgium are affected by significant environmental disruptions. How are such disruptions perceived by the migrants? Through its innovative theoretical and empirical approach MIGRADAPT will provide scientific evidence on the role of environmental drivers in migration decisions and on how perceived and observed environmental changes exacerbate pre-existing migration flows to Belgium through its impacts on the other most commonly addressed drivers of migration, such political and economic factors. Moreover, the project will show how environmental disruptions not only affect the first stage of human mobility from their countries of origin, but also how environmental stressors intervene throughout migrants ‘fragmented journeys’, including their potential to alter migratory routes and destinations entirely. Second, MIGRADAPT seeks to understand how migrants can support the adaptation and resilience of their communities of origin. How and under which conditions can migration support the adaptation and resilience of communities affected by environmental changes? MIGRADAPT will provide evidence on how and under which conditions migration to Belgium can support the adaptation and resilience of origin communities and also on how the perception that migrants have on environmental shocks in their origin communities can impact the amount, form, and use of the socio-economic remittances that they send. Through its transnational and multi-sited methodology that captures both the drivers and impacts of migration, MIGRADAPT will address the multifactor aspect of the dynamics of environmental migration and its implications for both migrants and those remaining in communities of origin. The evidence from the project, both in Belgium and in three different countries of origin of the selected migrants, will be translated into policy recommendations that should allow policy makers to tailor and mainstream the environmental component of migration into migration policies, including bilateral migration agreements. The project will also seek to inform Belgian climate and development policies, so that they can better incorporate migration into the strategies. Overall, the project will seek the maximise the potential of migration for adaptation to environmental changes, building on its appraisal of the migration-environment nexus in Belgium.

Cette étude et le rapport qui s’en est suivi constitue en quelques sorte une introduction aux méthodes de prospective et de planification à long terme. Cette étude débouche sur l’élaboration d’une grille d’analyse qui est ensuite appliquée à une série d’exercices de prospective et de planification, comme autant d’étude de cas qui contribueront à consolider et valider notre grille d’analyse.

Analyse des mobilités circulaires, études sur les mobilités des populations entre les villes Européennes

Ce travail a consisté à concevoir, développer et mettre à jour un système de représentation cartographique des activités de la Communauté Française de Belgique à destination du grand public d'une part et à destination de l'administration d'autre part. Différents secteurs ont été localisés : les bibliothèques publiques, les médiathèques, les musées, les maisons et centres de jeunes, les centres d'expression et de créativité (CEC), les centres culturels, les lieux de spectacles vivants, les centres sportifs et les points verts ADEPS, les établissements d'enseignement de promotion sociale et socio-culturelle, les établissements d'enseignement de plein exercice, les infrastructures culturelles et administratives et les institutions et services d'aide à la jeunesse.

The main objective of MAUPP is to develop models and forecasts to improve our knowledge of sub-Saharan African urban population patterns for a wider usage of urban population distribution datasets in vulnerability and health assessments. The MAUPP project aims to contribute to the WorldPop open access archive of spatial demographic datasets.

En septembre 2010, la Politique Scientifique Fédérale a accordé un financement pour intégrer des techniques d'observation de la Terre au projet. Le but de ce projet est donc de mettre en place des méthodes de télédétection afin de (...)

This study discusses the methodology and applications for simplifying Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) in the wood products’ sector in order to reduce LCA complexity for Small-Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The objective is to develop a methodology that is simple yet reliable, so that the majority of the environmental impact of a product can be explained by only a few processes in the production chain (i.e. parameters, pieces of life cycle inventory). SMEs, Benefit Corporations and other company configurations can use this information to design, manufacture and analyze their products and value chains by concentrating on the parameters that have the highest contribution to environmental impact. The simplification of a more complex system from a full LCA requires using a small number of relevant input parameters. Glued laminated timber i.e. glulam, is used as a case study on which the methodology is developed and tested in order to define a framework to find the significant variable and fixed parameters. This LCA simplification aims to be accomplished using principles from global sensitivity analysis as an alternative to a full LCA. Results from seven midpoint impact indicators are analyzed according to the highest ranking input parameters in the glulam system, according to their proportion contributing to overall environmental impact. Using a glulam case study, the definition of the parametric model of the full life cycle inventory is based on 86 independent parameters. Exploring this methodology to determine key parameters involves researching new techniques in combining amplification factor calculations and global sensitivity analysis (GSA). Sobol and Morris methods are chosen to accomplish a ranking of the most impactful parameters and the interaction between parameters, respectively. Main Steps: Amplification factor calculations reduced the parameters from 86 to the 18 main contributors to environmental impact over seven impact categories. Then, the top few key parameters are to be calculated using global sensitivity analysis. Next, the remaining key parameters are to be identified using concepts from simplified parametric modeling. SMEs and other practitioners can use the methodology in order to assess the environmental impact of their products. Further applications: The methodology may be adapted to investigate the combination of LCA and Life Cycle Costing (LCC) concerns as the investigative goal, related to a wide array of products or concerns in the forest industry. Ultimately, the framework can be expanded in order to incorporate Social Life Cycle Assessment (SLCA) into the analysis which will enable the calculation of a triple bottom line assessment.