ANR EGOUT

By 2050, more than 2/3 of the human population will live in urban centers . High densities of population will inevitably lead to enhanced exposition to threats such as climate change or pollution, which will lead to severe health, social and economic issues. There is a crucial need for a high level of spatially and temporarily constrained information in order to provide agile decision tools for ensuring sustainable and resilient urban socio-ecosystems towards numerous threats.

The main objective of the EGOUT project is to establish, in Paris, the foundations for an integrative, objective and reactive long-term geochemical observatory and retro-observatory of socio-economic trajectories through the analysis of materials transported and accumulated in sewer networks. Teamwork with scientists from both humanities and environmental sciences will allow a better comparison of data from geochemical and socio-economic analyses.

• The first objective of the EGOUT project is to establish a multi-indicator geochemical map of the city of Paris. By comparison with socio-economic data, this will allow us (1) defining new geochemical indicators for urban planning (2) identifying potential socio-economic and environmental determinisms of population vulnerabilities.
• The second objective is to deliver decision tools and alert systems to stakeholders by surveying temporal evolutions of selected tracers in the sewer. It will also result in a better understanding of the environmental and socio-economic controlling factors of pollutants’ fluxes in the sewer network, on their dynamics and reactivity.
• The third objective is to involve citizens, students and local actors in the knowledge construction through an intervention research process (from the tracer selection to the results interpretation). This co-constructed sequence will generate mutual benefits: a more integrated results analysis for the project, a better knowledge of the people’s perception of sewers, crucial information on the cultural/socioeconomic controls that condition citizen awareness to environmental issues, and levers susceptible to make them change their practises.

To tackle these challenges, the multi-actor and interdisciplinary EGOUT project will bring together the complementary expertise of geochemists, geographers, sociologists and practitioners, consolidated by the interaction with citizens and decision makers.
The objectives of EGOUT are in line with those defined in the Paris Resilient Strategy, in the OPUR 5 project, in the «Observil« National Observation Service, and in the Urban Observatory of Practices in development by the SIAAP.
EGOUT will provide the foundations for maintaining a perennial long-term geochemical observatory of practices in Paris.