Environment: the first lessons of the Mistrals program in the Mediterranean
View of the Mediterranean Sea in Cagnes-sur-Mer, France, December 7, 2014. Lionel Cironneau / AP Photo
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The Mediterranean, cradle of our modern civilizations and subject of growing geopolitical issues, is also one of the regions most sensitive to pollution of all types and to ongoing climate change.
More than 1,000 scientists from 23 countries have participated in the Mistrals (Mediterranean Integrated STudies at Regional And Local Scales) research program, coordinated by the CNRS, and report the first results of 10 years of study of the environment and global changes around the Mediterranean.
To be able to envisage the future, geographers first studied the past.
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Did the civilizations that came before us collapse during times of warming?
Geographers' analyzes show that the complexity of agricultural systems has enabled survival.
But warming would have led to the collapse of political systems, such as the end of the Hittite Empire in 1170 BCE, in Anatolia.
► See also: Environment: WWF warns of the perils threatening the Mediterranean Sea
Analyze the past to better anticipate the future
More recently, studies on air pollution show that between 2010 and 2015, chronic exposure to fine particles and nitrogen dioxide, in large cities in the eastern Mediterranean, generated respectively 11% and 8% mortality among those under 30.
Concerning the state of forests, sentinels of climate change, they have been expanding rapidly on the northern shore of the Mediterranean basin for 10 years, but increasingly degraded on the southern shore.
If repeated droughts greatly reduce the microfauna which plays the role of soil scavenger, scientists note that the more a forest is populated with different tree species, the better the health of this microfauna;
and the more resistant the forest will be.
But the amounts of data collected over 10 years have not finished revealing their secrets.
They will now help to anticipate the future.
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