Search

The development of non-invasive methods and accessible tools for application to plant phenotyping is considered a breakthrough. This work presents the preliminary results using an electronic nose (E-Nose) and machine learning (ML) as affordable tools. An E-Nose is an electronic system used for smell global analysis, which emulates the human nose structure. The soybean (Glycine Max) was used to conduct this experiment under water stress. Commercial E-Nose was used, and a chamber was designed and built to conduct the measurement of the gas sample from the soybean. This experiment was conducted for 22 days, observing the stages of plant growth during this period. This chamber is embedded with relative humidity [RH (%)], temperature (°C), and CO2 concentration (ppm) sensors, as well as the natural light intensity, which was monitored. These systems allowed intermittent monitoring of each parameter to create a database. The soil used was the red-yellow dystrophic type and was covered to avoid evapotranspiration effects. The measurement with the electronic nose was done daily, during the morning and afternoon, and in two phenological situations of the plant (with the healthful soy irrigated with deionized water and underwater stress) until the growth V5 stage to obtain the plant gases emissions. Data mining techniques were used, through the software “Weka™” and the decision tree strategy. From the evaluation of the sensors database, a dynamic variation of plant respiration pattern was observed, with the two distinct behaviors observed in the morning (~9:30 am) and afternoon (3:30 pm). With the initial results obtained with the E-Nose signals and ML, it was possible to distinguish the two situations, i.e., the irrigated plant standard and underwater stress, the influence of the two periods of daylight, and influence of temporal variability of the weather. As a result of this investigation, a classifier was developed that, through a non-invasive analysis of gas samples, can accurately determine the absence of water in soybean plants with a rate of 94.4% accuracy. Future investigations should be carried out under controlled conditions that enable early detection of the stress level.

Many European countries have implemented development policies for regions and territories in order to contribute to their growth and reduce inequalities. The EU has developed policies for cohesion and smart development which aim to promote the growth of all territories and reduce the gaps between them. The implementation of those policies raises questions about the place of and role of peripheral areas in terms of development. Will they remain under-developed regions, lagging behind? Or are they able to participate in overall development processes? The topic of our paper is an exploration of smart development for peripheral areas, and more especially, rural areas, in Europe. The question arises as to whether these areas are, despite their handicaps, capable of meeting the challenges of development, and most of all of satisfying the conditions for a smart development process. In order to address the question of the development potential of peripheral areas, we start by presenting the European policies of cohesion and smart development, before highlighting the limits of their acceptance by local people. We then show that there are other types of territorial innovations than those identified in the most well-known policies, and finally we propose development strategies for a particular type of peripheral area: rural territories. We found that even while the development policies devoted to these territories have multiplied over the last thirty years, the inhabitants of peripheral areas very often feel dissatisfied with their situation and express their opposition through extreme votes or public demonstration. One of the major reasons for this growing gap between the proliferation of EU policies and the dissatisfaction of the population is that innovations and novelties coming from these areas are rarely considered and encouraged by the current policies. The latter attach too great an importance to technological dimensions and are mainly directed towards industrialized and densely populated areas, whereas innovations stemming from peripheral territories, which are very real, are concentrated primarily in the social, institutional, and organizational fields. In the end, many policies are disconnected from the needs, the will, and the skills of local populations in peripheral areas. In order to avoid these problems and to reduce the obstacles on the development paths of peripheral areas we advocate policies that are better adapted to these territories and which seriously consider their innovative character. The case of rural areas in Europe provides interesting insights because it shows that a mix of ‘traditional’ and more social and institutional policies is possible, and that various mixes can be adapted to the peculiarities of these regions; from peri-urban areas to remote agricultural or forested lands. In any case, it is important to stress that the measures that are applied must be adapted to the respective characteristics of the different categories of territory and not be based on a catalogue adaptable to any type of peripheral areas. It is at this price that we may avoid the disjunction between the different territories of the EU and the appearance of zones of separatism, or even the dislocation of the European community.

This contribution essentially aims to highlight the circular economy in territorial development and the new industrial strategy for Europe. We highlight the main challenges of the circular economy and present the main obstacles to its deployment today. Finally, we propose the establishment of a European industrial and territorial ecology.

Proximities’ influence on the construction of socio-economic networks provokes many debates in the literature. The present contribution aims to study the functioning of coordination between actors in support systems for agricultural sectors and to highlight the impact of a public policy of territorial development on these devices, with the help of an approach in terms of networks and proximities. For that, we analyze the Local Productive Arrangements (LPAs) of an agricultural sector in the Brazilian Amazon, supported by a territorial governance mechanism. The mobilized analysis framework allows us to study and compare LPAs, to characterize the types of networks according to the types of proximities and to highlight the importance of the territorial governance mechanism for strengthening and sustaining LPAs.

Rapid urbanization in China has triggered the mass migration of rural populations to cities. These policies have resulted in a shortage of construction land for the urban population and in an inefficient use of rural homestead, causing a tremendous waste of rural land resources. Rural homestead transfer has been identified as a tool to solve this problem: the saved construction land can be reclaimed to cultivated land, and the construction rights are transferred to urban areas, where they can be used to build new households for the demanding population. We consider that transaction costs analysis can help understand the governance structures of the homestead processes, and provide avenues for further research and policy recommendations. Our article draws on the practices and experiences gained in three areas in rural China (Jinzhai, Yiwu, and Jiangning in the Anhui, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu Provinces, China). Based on the empirical cases and information produced from the villages and households survey, we developed an analytical framework of transaction cost. Results suggest that Yiwu has lower assets specificity, lower uncertainty, and transaction frequency, hence the market driven model played a major role. In Jinzhai, which presents higher assets specificity, higher uncertainty, and transaction frequency, the government-oriented model also played a major role. In Jiangning, where most transaction attributes are situated in the middle, the mixed-oriented model acted as a main role in the local area. Our conclusion shows that various governance structures are appropriate for different areas of rural China, which is significantly related to the local transaction attributes. We suggest promoting the governance structure which corresponds to the local resource endowment, human and residential condition, the cultural atmosphere, and also the institutional (official) atmosphere. Matched with the government or/and market governance structure, it may develop the resource allocation efficiency and improve economic performance.

In recent years, the concept of Agriculture 4.0 has emerged as an evolution of precision agriculture (PA) through the diffusion of the Internet of things (IoT). There is a perception that the PA adoption is occurring at a slower pace than expected. Little research has been carried out about Agriculture 4.0, as well as to farmer behavior and operations management. This work explores what drives the adoption of PA in the Agriculture 4.0 context, focusing on farmer behavior and operations management. As a result of a multimethod approach, the factors explaining the PA adoption in the Agriculture 4.0 context and a model of irrigation operations management are proposed. Six simulation scenarios are performed to study the relationships among the factors involved in irrigation planning. Empirical findings contribute to a better understanding of what Agriculture 4.0 is and to expand the possibilities of IoT in the PA domain. This work also contributes to the discussion on Agriculture 4.0, thanks to multidisciplinary research bringing together the different perspectives of PA, IoT and operations management. Moreover, this research highlights the key role of IoT, considering the farmer’s possible choice to adopt several IoT sensing technologies for data collection.

The territorial environmental stakes believes in an exponential way for a decade. The political decision-makers seize this sphere of influence and facilitate actions which promote the sustainable project. The Paris Region chooses to base its territorial development partially on the "greening urban" ideology. This Region operates actions to become the first European Ecoregion by half-dozen years. It facilitates agro-environmental decisions. One of the pillars of this territorial development is organic farming. To create a dynamics of local democracy, the Paris Region establishes participative governance based on debates, on Round Tables and public reports. This paper suggests analyzing the means used to create participative dynamics in the town and country planning, in the territorial management. This "governmentality" of the organic farming strengthens the plan of suburban farming to interest the urban voters.

Tomato cropping (Solanum lycopersicum L.) under protected cultivation using substrates and drip fertigation has improved sustainable production systems especially fruit quality and plant health. However, little is known for tomato plants when considering the interaction between substrate volume and irrigation frequency. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of coconut (Cocos nucifera L.) fiber substrate volumes and drip irrigation frequencies on the vegetative growth and fruit yield of tomato plants under greenhouse conditions. The experimental design consisted of randomized blocks arranged in a 3 × 2 factorial with four replicates. Treatments consisted of three substrate volumes (5.0; 7.5 and 10.0 L per plant) and two irrigation frequencies (once and five times per day). Leaf area index tended to increase in plants grown with the largest substrate volume (10 L). Although substrate volumes affected shoot dry matter, no effects on tomato yield and its components were observed. However, plants grown with 5 L of substrate and irrigated once a day produced a greater number of non-marketable fruit due to the higher incidence of calcium deficiency symptoms (blossom end rot). When plants were grown in 5 L or 7.5 L of substrate volume, high irrigation frequency favored the vegetative growth, stomatal conductance, CO2 assimilation and transpiration and fruit yield. Fruit yield and healthy fruits were favored by high irrigation frequency and did not depend on the substrate volume.

The smart management of freshwater for precision irrigation in agriculture is essential for increasing crop yield and decreasing costs, while contributing to environmental sustainability. The intense use of technologies offers a means for providing the exact amount of water needed by plants. The Internet of Things (IoT) is the natural choice for smart water management applications, even though the integration of different technologies required for making it work seamlessly in practice is still not fully accomplished. The SWAMP project develops an IoT-based smart water management platform for precision irrigation in agriculture with a hands-on approach based on four pilots in Brazil and Europe. This paper presents the SWAMP architecture, platform, and system deployments that highlight the replicability of the platform, and, as scalability is a major concern for IoT applications, it includes a performance analysis of FIWARE components used in the Platform. Results show that it is able to provide adequate performance for the SWAMP pilots, but requires specially designed configurations and the re-engineering of some components to provide higher scalability using less computational resources.

OASIS is an automatic internet interface that provides a wide set of statistical and cartographic tools for the analysis of spatial variables. Compared to what already exists, OASIS displays several advantages. Firstly, it is a complete platform that proposes new tools and includes a very large range of standard tools currently scattered in several software and interfaces. Secondly, OASIS provides access to a series of variables frequently used in the literature on spatial inequalities and segregation, which are available here at municipal scale for the entire metropolitan France (base maps included). Lastly, OASIS brings forward novel tools that allow for the testing of the statistical significance of all segregation and auto-correlation indexes with the help of Monte Carlo simulations. To our best knowledge, this kind of fully automatized tools are available nowhere, despite the obvious importance of ensuring the statistical reliability of spatial analyses.

This article aims at establishing the historical link between landscape questions and analyses led in the field of economics – with a particular emphasis on the notions of proximities. Indeed, it appears that, as with the questions on space, the landscape had long been one of the great forgotten notions of the theory of economics, and that its recent rehabilitation goes through the fact of taking value matters into account. The text begins with the slow introduction of the issues dealing with space, and then with landscape in economics’ analysis, and to end up confronting the notion of landscape to the basics of economical analysis – especially the questions of public or joint goods. Then, after having introduced the bases of the analysis of proximities, we show that this approach allows to plan the treatment of landscape’s issues other than value, such as the processes of competition between spaces or the conflicts concerning landscape dimensions.

This article aims to present the research conducted in recent years by a multidisciplinary team on the questions of land-use conflict, and to reveal the methodology of survey and data collection, as well as the structure of the resulting database. We first define the scope of our study by providing a definition of these conflicts, of their characteristics and motives, of the ways they manifest themselves and of the actors involved. We then present the methodology we have used to identify conflicts ; a methodology based on a spatial analysis and the combined use of different data collection methods including surveys conducted by experts, analyses of the regional daily press and of data from the administrative litigation courts. Finally we present the Conflicts data base©, with its tables and nomenclatures, in which the data collected in different fields is reconciled and analysed (III), before providing a few examples of how this method can be used to analyse the case of the Greater Paris Region.

This paper presents a research whose aim is to develop a « metascience » of landscape. It recounts the origins of this program, focusing on the issue of landscapes transmission à hybrid legacy between nature and culture. It points out the non-scientific cha¬racter of the criticism in charge of qualifying the value of landscape and the inadequacy of an interdisciplinary approach to support this practice of expertise. This paper proposes to enlighten this ethical issue by a new science able to exceed the dichotomy between nature and culture, on which are based all the sciences of landscape. Developing this new science requires a critical history, or better, what we would call an epistemology of the « protosciences » of landscape (i.e. an analysis of landscape in all its components, human and natural). Lastly, this article considers the new paradigm implied by this metascience for the landscape disciplines as for the others disciplines addressing the nature/culture issue.

Soil moisture porous matrix sensors may be good alternatives to tensiometers for measuring soil–water matric potential (SMP) for irrigation scheduling based on soil–water status approaches. The objective of this paper is to present and evaluate a new porous matrix sensor (IGstat) for detecting specific SMP thresholds for possible application in irrigation scheduling regulated by the SMP threshold concept. The IGstat sensor uses a non-sintered, glass bead microspheres (microGB) core and an outer ceramic cup, having larger air bubbling pressure (BP), to establish hydraulic contact with the soil. Pneumatic, optical, or electrical properties of the microGB porous medium can be then measured to infer the SMP. This paper describes and evaluates the performance of IGstat sensors for SMP threshold detection, using the pneumatic mode with a small air flow applied and air pressure monitored in the sensor tubing. Five IGstat sensors were built with different microGB diameters (15–125 µm) having air BP varying from 6 to 40 kPa. A power function was fitted to the data, which can be used to select microGB diameters to build IGstat sensors of required air BP. The experimental setup proposed to determine the sensor BP by incremental air injection provided air BP values in good agreement with those observed in a soil evaporation experiment (average relative error of 7.6%). The sensor responses in soil, with a small air pressure applied to them, showed a sharp pressure decreases when the SMP approached the sensor air BP, decreasing to about zero for SMP equal to the sensor air BP. The proposed sensors and approach showed potential for irrigation scheduling.

This paper proposes a land-use conflicts analysis in terms of proximity. The first part of the paper presents the results of empirical studies on land-use and neighbourhood conflicts in the French countryside. Such study cases permit to underline the major part plays by the geographic proximity in the emergence of land use conflicts. The second part of the paper is devoted to the exploration and the characterisation of the geographic proximity "polemogene" properties. These latter are balanced with the virtues of organised proximity that may favoured the emergence of negotiated solutions to the conflicts. In the third part of the paper, an analysis chart that combines spatial and organisational dimensions of proximity is proposed. With such an analytical framework it is possible to identify the different types of land use and neighbourhood conflicts and to qualify some of their cooperative issues.

The management of the waste of the Ile-de-France region is an interesting case study for analysing causes and effects of a scale change on territorial governance: eight local plans have been recently renewed for a unique regional plan. The reasons of this change and the consequences on the landfilling of non-dangerous waste (a typically controversial application of territorial governance) are presented and analyzed in the paper. The change of scale does not modify the fundamentals of regional waste landfilling, but allows for an adequate institutional frame.

The Covid appeared as a catalyst for emerging and pre-existing phenomena, a revealer of inequalities and a generator of new dynamics within territories. Research in humanities and social sciences has echoed these global and local issues. By focusing on French-language publications between 2020 and 2022, this paper first identifies a trend of the observed facts, before looking at the specific contribution of human and social science approaches dedicated to the Covid period, as well as the evolution of the issues addressed. The final section puts the articles published in this special issue of the DD & T journal devoted to Covid at the territorial scale into perspective in contemporary scientific production.

The circular economy, a new economic model that respects the environment, alternative to the linear economy, is presented as an opportunity for territorial sustainable development. In the context of socio-ecological transition, its approaches are thus increasingly experienced locally but the question of their territoriality and their links with sustainable spatial development remains scientifically unstable. This article is a review of the bibliography which aims to analyze the territoriality of circular economy approaches and to assess if they can become an opportunity to ensure sustainable territorial development.