OOSC 2025: Stéphanie Duvail presents transdisciplinary approaches for sustainable trajectories of coastal and ocean social-ecological systems

OOSC 2025 : Stéphanie Duvail presents transdisciplinary approaches for sustainable trajectories of coastal and ocean social-ecological systems

Stéphanie Duvail, Geographer, Research Director at IRD and co-leader of the BRIDGES CO-CONSTRUCTION targeted project, will participate in the One Ocean Science Congress (OOSC) in Nice. On June 3, she will give a presentation entitled “Mobilising transdisciplinary approaches to co-construct sustainable and equitable trajectories for coastal and oceanic socio-ecosystems: examples of approaches developed at IRD” (ref. OOS2025-356).

Faced with increasing pressures on coastal and oceanic environments—urbanization, intensive exploitation, climate change—Stéphanie Duvail, Marine Herrmann, Marie Bonnin, Sophie Lanco, Olivier Pringault, and Emma Inthavong advocate inter- and transdisciplinary approaches that integrate social sciences, ecology, geography, and interactions with stakeholders. The goal: to understand the complexity of coastal and marine systems in order to co-construct trajectories of sustainability and equity.

Three projects emblematic of this approach will be highlighted:

•The LOTUS LMI in Vietnam, implementing scientific cooperation to address Vietnam’s maritime socio-environmental challenges through training, integrated research, and joint campaigns such as PLUME.

•DiDEM, a flagship project aimed at improving science-decision dialogue for shared governance of maritime areas in the western Indian Ocean. The project promotes the co-construction of nature-based solutions and participatory tools such as citizen observatories and collaborative modeling.

•PADDLE, which focused on marine spatial planning to reconcile human uses and conservation in different contexts in the tropical Atlantic, highlighting the limitations of standardized policy frameworks. The project also contributed to the training of students and decision-makers.

These approaches are closely linked to those of the BRIDGES program, which is developing a decision-support network linking science, local knowledge, and public decision-making to better anticipate and support future transformations in five workshop sites in the southwestern Indian Ocean. To this end, it draws on the co-construction approaches developed in the targeted BRIDGES CO-CONSTRUCTION project, in which Stéphanie Duvail once again promotes transdisciplinarity to bring about shared knowledge and visions for a fair and sustainable future.

Biosketch

Stéphanie Duvail is a geographer and senior researcher working with the IRD. Her research concentrates on coastal zone management in Africa with specific focus on floodplains, deltas and estuaries. She studies land-sea interactions by looking at the effects of dams on ecosystems and rural economies that are located downstream of the infrastructures. More generally, her research focuses on aspects of water and resource sharing and land and coastal planning issues associated with these. She has carried out research in transdisciplinary teams using participatory approaches in Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique.