An H2020 project at the crossroads of biodiversity and infrastructure management

The European H2020 Bison project is part of the context of the adaptation of territories to climate change, and focuses on the cross-cutting issues of preserving biodiversity and infrastructure safety.

The project, which brings together all of Cerema's local offices, the Sea and Coastal Division, is led by by Cerema Sud-Ouest, whose European network has made it possible to join It brings together 39 partners from France, Belgium, Germany, Romania, Czech Republic, Spain Czechs, Spaniards, Danes, Italians, Slovaks, Poles, Israeli, Irish, Greek, Swedish...

What practices can be used to improve the cohabitation between biodiversity and infrastructures?

The Bison Project aims to recommend practices and techniques to reduce fragmentation of natural habitats by infrastructure, reduce collisions with animals, act on pollution, promote the functioning of ecosystems...

The Bison project has four main objectives:

• Identify the needs in terms of research and innovation to improve the integration of biodiversity in the planning, construction, operation and adaptation of infrastructures. In this context, a collection of practices at the national, regional and local levels to expand the knowledge base on this subject.

• Improve the reliability of European transport infrastructures in a context of adaptation to climate change, to limit the presence of invasive species and support native species in Western Europe, and Europe, and to limit habitat fragmentation due to infrastructure development fragmentation due to infrastructure development in Eastern Europe. development in Eastern Europe. The Bison project will identify construction methods and materials, maintenance and inspection methods and materials that are sustainable and resilient and can be used by different modes of transportation to mitigate pressure on biodiversity.

• Make recommendations to improve the integration of of biodiversity in the field of infrastructure at the European level, in particular in the European Commission.

• Encourage collaboration between infrastructure builders to improve practices.

Identify good practices and establish recommendations

Cerema will be more particularly involved in in part 3 of the project, which aims to identify and describe with the help of indicators of good practices and technologies used in the partner countries. The project will focus on nature-based solutions among a panel of solutions that allow the integration of biodiversity issues in the field of infrastructure. Key stakeholders involved in these issues will be interviewed in the different countries participating in the project.

This work will make it possible in a next step to define principles and criteria for recommending practices that contribute to the restoration of biodiversity at the infrastructure, based on existing practices.

A guide of good practices will be developed based on the knowledge gathered by Cerema, to adapt existing infrastructures, defragmenting natural habitats, ensuring appropriate management of these infrastructures and improving their safety.

It will also identify emerging topics and challenges to come on biodiversity and transport, in the context of adaptation to climate change, and finally to formulate recommendations that can help guide innovation or be applied in the planning and construction of infrastructures. One aspect will be the concern about the spread of the virus through infrastructure.

Finally, this component will develop the modelling of infrastructures based on the BIM model for construction, management and maintenance processes, which will be an essential tool with the development of autonomous vehicles and connected infrastructure. Biodiversity issues will be integrated into this model.

Cerema will also be involved in part 5, which aims to define the solutions to be implemented for the Strategic Research and Deployment Agenda. This part will also allow to identify the themes of cooperation between European partners and stakeholders and to transfer and deploy good practices at the practices at the policy, legislative and implementation levels implementation, in particular to defragment the territories.

Priority research avenues will be proposed within the framework of another component based on prospective scenarios on the evolution of the cross-cutting issues of infrastructure and biodiversity.