Topic of Research

par BOUTIN Nathalie

Doctoral dissertation project

Territorial management of biodiversity in a context of growing urbanization and intense interactions man‐nature. A multi-site analysis


The issue of biodiversity, hoisted at the forefront of environmental concerns as well as climate change, has fueled a voluminous literature and many reports more or less alarmist. Depending on whether one looks at the issue from the point of view of earth sciences and life sciences versus the humanities and social sciences, there are complementary but also conflicting views. We consider here the issue of biodiversity in terms of its territorial management, focused on comparative study of several groups of cities of the Bouches-du-Rhône (France) and Mediterranean cities, which have in common being located in spaces marked by intense human-environment interactions. This which give a specific and local concern for biodiversity. Those areas, subject to rapid transition, impose a new context of intervention for public and private stakeholders. This interdisciplinary project but inspired in the humanities and especially management sciences, aims at developing an important conceptual and theoretical effort to build a coherent set of data on biodiversity, human pressure, expectations and representations in environmental matters, and decisions of public and private stakeholders affecting biodiversity.

First Academic Fastening : IMPGT-CERGAM (Supervisor : Pr Solange Hernandez)
Second : IMBE (Co-supervisor : Dr Sophie Gachet)
Third : OHM-BMP (CNRS-INEE) (Co-supervisor : Pr Pierre Batteau)

Thesis funded by the LABEX OT-Med (Aix-Marseille University)