Presentation

Position

Permanent researcher in agro-hydrology applied to agroecological systems

Research fellow at CIRAD (French agricultural research centre for development), within the lab Joint Research Unit "Water Management, Actors, Territories" (UMR G-EAU)

Address: Montpellier, France

Research Description

I hold an engineering diploma in agronomy, a PhD on ecosystems, and am an agro-hydrologist working at the Centre de coopération Internationale pour la Recherche en Agriculture pour le Développement (CIRAD) based in France. I currently conduct research in North Africa and Southern France and was appointed in Tunisia for over three years. I previously worked in the Sahel region and Kenya. My interest focuses on the interactions between water management and agroecological systems in Mediterranean and semi-arid climates. My main theoretical research questions how irrigation and water management should make us rethink the agroecological transition of agricultural systems. On the practical side, I undertake field research on innovation tracking and evaluation. I use participatory approaches, but also systemic (diagnosis of farming systems) and modelling approaches (Soil-Vegetation-Atmosphere Transfer Models, plant growth models) combined with experimental methods at the field plot and farming scale to quantify changes in the water and carbon cycles and impacts on farmers. I have coordinated multiple projects and supervised many students.

Research Interests

• Quantifying the impact of human-induced changes on the provision of ecosystem services, with a particular focus on productive and hydrological services.

• Water management and its quantification for a sustainable intensification of agriculture and a better management of natural resources, concerning in particular irrigated agriculture.

• Methods: agrarian diagnosis, use of integrated or coupled soil-vegetation-atmosphere models, participative research, field data collection, detection of environmental variables by remote-sensing techniques.

Projects:

I develop two types of projects:

  • water management within and through agroecology

  • technological solutions for water management

Check out the projects I currently work in here.

Contact:

Permanent position:

UMR G-eau

361, rue Jean-François Breton – BP 5095 – 34196 Montpellier Cedex 5 – France

crystele.leauthaud (at) cirad (dot) fr