SUMMARY OF THE PROJECT

The general objective of the PRESENCE research project is to study the pressures on New Caledonian marine, reef and lagoon ecosystems, and more precisely their fate, intensity and spatial distribution.

It aims to answer the following 3 questions:

1.       How are the pressures distributed spatially and temporally within New Caledonian coral ecosystems?

2.       What are the roles played by the ocean-lagoon and land-lagoon interfaces on the hydrological structuring of lagoons?

3.       How can these pressures be integrated in order to assess their influence on the ecological status of the reef-lagoon ecosystem?

The project is based on a combination of in-situ observations and remote sensing methods and hydrodynamic modeling and is divided into 6 tasks:

1.       Acquisition of bathymetric data by in-situ measurements and satellite image processing.

2.       Development of hydrodynamic model models (Mercator, MARS3D) at different spatial scales and resolutions (1/12°, 1.5 km, 300m, 60 m)

3.       Modeling of terrigenous inputs (river flows), representation of the land-lagoon continuum and study of the fate at sea from data from the triptych observations, models, satellites.

4.       Aggregation of the information in the form of cartographic indicators describing the physical characteristics of the environment. These indicators will be used as a basis for clustering into hydrodynamic landscapes of New Caledonian lagoons.

5.       To perpetuate the results, data, reports and publications in databases and ad hoc websites in order to transfer them to different audiences (technical services of communities, scientists and general public).

6.       Environmental communication to disseminate information through public events, technical groups, seminars, et