The Paris Climate Agreements and Sustainable Development Goals, signed by 197 countries, present agendas and address key issues for implementing multi-scale responses for sustainable development under climate change—an effort that must involve local, regional, national, and supra-national stakeholders. In that regard, Continental Carbon Sequestration (CoCS) and conservation of carbon sinks are recognized increasingly as having potentially important roles in mitigating climate change and adapting to it. Making that potential a reality will require indicators of success for various stakeholders from multidisciplinary backgrounds, plus promotion of long-term implementation of strategic action towards civil society (e.g., law and policy makers, economists, and farmers). To help meet those challenges, this discussion paper summarizes the state of the art and uncertainties regarding CoCS, taking an interdisciplinary, holistic approach toward understanding these complex issues. The first part of the paper discusses the carbon cycle’s bio-geophysical processes, while the second introduces the plurality of geographical scales to be addressed when dealing with landscape management for CoCS. The third part addresses systemic viability, vulnerability, and resilience in CoCS practices, before concluding with the need to develop inter-disciplinarity in sustainable science, participative research, and the societal implications of sustainable CoCS actions.

Ecosystem services (ES) are a key-component for sustainable management of human–environment systems, particularly in polar environments where effects of global changes are stronger. Taking local knowledge into account allows the valuation of ES experienced by stakeholders. It is the case for reindeer herders in Scandinavia, the ungulate being a keystone specie for subarctic socio-ecosystems. We adapt the ecosystem services assessment (ESA) proposed in Finland to the case study of the Gabna herders’ community (Sweden), considering its cultural, geographical, and dynamic specificities. We used Saami ecological categories over the land-use categories of the CORINE Land Cover (CLC). We reassessed ES at the scale of the Gabna community and its seasonal pastures. We studied their evolution over 2000–2018, using CLC maps and Change CLC maps. Integration of Saami ecological categories in the classification of land cover did not substantially change the land cover distributions. However, ES were greater in Saami land use compared to other CLC categories. Cultural services were higher for summer and interseasonal pastures, dedicated to the reindeer reproduction, suggesting interactions between provisioning and cultural ES. Land cover changes are mostly represented by intensive forestry (5% of winter pastures) impeding reindeer grazing activity, while other seasonal pasture landscape composition stayed comparable along time. Consequently, forest activity, and in a lesser extent glacier melting and urbanization are the main drivers of the temporal evolution of ES. In the frame of pastoral landscapes conservation, the use of local terminologies opens perspectives for a holistic approach in environmental science. It raises the importance of local stakeholders as co-researchers in nature conservation studies.

En Laponie suédoise, le changement global soumet l’activité l’élevage de rennes semi-domestiques à des enjeux de territorialisation inédits. Une analyse cartographique et statistique menée à l’échelle régionale montre que les communautés saamies sont inégalement affectées par ce processus selon (i) leur répartition le long de l’écotone forêt boréale-toundra, (ii) leur taux d’exploitation forestière, (iii) la présence de nœuds routiers et d’infrastructures de transport, (iv) la proximité au littoral, (v) les aires protégées jouant un rôle secondaire pour limiter cette fragmentation. Ces tendances, dont l’intensification est attendue à l’avenir, questionnent le couple adaptabilité/résilience de ces systèmes pastoraux extensifs face au changement global.

Les régions subarctiques font face aux effets interconnectés et pluri-scalaires du changement global (amplification des extrêmes bioclimatiques et intensification dans l’utilisation des sols). Le renne, Rangifer tarandus est un grand herbivore qui migre annuellement sur de grands espaces pour ses besoins biologiques. L’ongulé cristallise de nombreux enjeux paysagers pour les pastoralismes saamis. Plusieurs populations de rennes seront étudiées dans un suivi multi-scalaire. Nous évaluons les effets directs du changement global (fragmentation paysagère et changements climatiques) sur les paysages culturels de Scandinavie en lien avec la démographie des rennes. Par la suite, la descente en échelle géographique nous permet de caractériser via satellite et relevés floristiques les effets du changement global sur les paysages végétaux de la communauté montagnarde d’éleveurs Gabna, dans le nord de la Suède. Nous étudions ensuite les comportements migratoires des rennes sauvages norvégiens, pour appréhender les liens entre variabilité bioclimatique et écologie spatiale de l’herbivore. Les résultats principaux rejoignent ceux de la littérature scientifique, appliqués aux espaces étudiés : régionalement, changement des climats et pertes significatives en pâturages ; localement, boréalisation et embroussaillement des paysages migratoires. Les liens forts entre une partie des effets cumulés du changement global et la biogéographie scandinave de Rangifer tarandus sont ainsi discutés. L’approche paysagère dans les problématiques environnementales complexes (revendication territoriale) a révélé l’importance de l’éthique dans le dialogue science/minorités.

Aim: To describe the first major epidemic thunderstorm asthma (ETSA) event detected in France in June 2023. Methods: Data on local meteorology, visits to the emergency room (ER) for asthma and hospitalization after a visit, aerobiological composition of the atmosphere (pollens and spores), phenological information on the flowering of grasses, and regional air pollution were collected, aggregated, and analyzed. Results: The ETSA was centered on the Paris region. An excess of 1,900 emergency visits for asthma was recorded over the period 10, 11, and 12 June. The people most affected were men aged 14 to 44. The hospitalization rate following a visit to the ER for asthma increased to 13%. ER visits for asthma began at around 6 pm on 10 June, just after an intense gust (15 m/s) triggering a PM10 resuspension episode, and peaked at around 10 pm on 11 June. Concentrations of mold spores (Cladosporium and Ascosporium) rose sharply during the night of 10–11 June, at the same time as the intake peak. The ETSA occurred during the grass and Urticaceae pollen season, with pollen concentrations lower (< 100 pollen grains/m3) compared to the days preceding the event (> 200 pollen grains/m3). A fraction of the pollen was observed without cytoplasm, but there was no apparent link with the ETSA. Phenological observations in the Paris pollinarium showed that the ETSA coincided with the start of the Lolium perenne (ryegrass) pollen season. Conclusions: Although the data collected did not allow the identification of a single cause for the occurrence of the ETSA, they pointed to multifactorial causes such as the occurrence of an ozone pollution episode, strong winds before the storm, an episode of resuspension of PM10 particles, the presence of broken pollen, and the significant increase in mold spores just after the stormy episode.

PREPRINT // SUBMITTED THE 15TH OF OCTOBER 2020 TO ANNALS OF GIS // SPECIAL ISSUE "GENERAL PRINCIPLES/ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORKS IN GEOGRAPHY/GISCIENCE" The current biodiversity crisis, combined with climate change are major issues requesting specific monitoring of plants communities' responses in terms of geographical distribution. Nowadays, large open-access biodiversity datasets (OBDs) such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) are commonly used to describe, explain and predict fauna and flora geographical distribution. They constitute new opportunities, but stay related to major uncertainties about sampling biases, driven by the concentration of various biodiversity data records and associated data providers. Taking the example of a widely studied tree (Betula pubsescens Ehrh.), in a scientifically well-funded region (Swedish Lapland), we discuss those peculiar issues in the frame of geographical laws (e.g. respectively spatial autocorrelation, heterogeneity and similarity) at macro-and micro-regional scales. After spatial and temporal filtering on georeferenced records and discussion on sampling strategies heterogeneity, tests of spatial autocorrelation (Moran's I index) has been conducted on Birch tree records provided by major institutions, comparatively. Pearson Khi-2 (χ 2) test is thus applied on the generated grid to confront number of Birch tree records with accessibility factors (e.g. artificial land cover, roads, protected natural areas) Thus, a micro-regional analysis is conducted to quantify Birch tree records in vegetation classes where this tree species is supposed to be dominant. At the macro-regional scale, results show the high spatial variability of sub-datasets according to institution providing records from the studied GBIF OBDs (with higher autocorrelation results for large contributors). This spatial variability, and high spatial autocorrelation effects appears to be partly explained at macro-, micro-and local scale by the distribution of human accessibility and facility factors (e.g. roads, cities etc). In this study case, exploring OBDs for an extensively addressed tree species, in a significantly funded region/country was particularly useful, demonstrating the relevance of spatial similarity law to differentiate adequately sampling biases efforts from "natural" spatial autocorrelation.