IRD has been present in South East Asia since 1976 and has four representations there. Research is conducted on a partnership basis and tackles a wide array of topics such as agriculture and environment, biodiversity, aquaculture, health, geology and so on.
After the 2014 Lengguru expedition, the biggest scientific expedition ever led in Indonesia, work to exploit the data collected began in 2015. The expedition also resulted in a travelling educational photography exhibition in France and Indonesia, entitled The Lost World of Lengguru, a scientific expedition to West Papua, and an initial paper on the discovery and description of four new orchid species.
In April 2015, as part of the DOMERAPI project, IRD teams and their Indonesian colleagues completed a large-scale seismic tomography experiment. Over 18 months, approximately fifty seismometers, placed in the region surrounding the Merapi and Merbabu volcanoes, continuously recorded regional seismic activity, which is frequent in this subduction zone. This information on the source of magma supply is crucial in understanding the origin of eruptive phenomena at regional level. As part of a partnership with Bandung Institute of Technology, this work is now producing the first images of the internal structure of Merapi and images – though still very limited at high resolution – of the internal structure of an andesite volcano.
As part of the ANR COASTVAR (Multi-scale and multi-method study of coastal variability in the Gulf of Guinea and Vietnam) project, an intensive measurement campaign was run on Nha Trang beach in Vietnam from 27 November to 5 December 2015. The goal was to use innovative technology to quantify the natural resilience of the Vietnamese coast to the combined pressures of natural hazards such as typhoons and growing anthropisation. The team in the field was made up of 24 French and Vietnamese scientists.
At the Regional Forum on Climate Change held in Bangkok from 1st to 3rd July 2015, IRD presented its research work on the ‘French expertise’ stand which it helped to organise with Cirad and the AFD. Several IRD researchers recognised internationally for their work on climate change spoke about their research during oral presentations in the scientific sessions or presented it on posters at the side events.
To coincide with the International Year of Soils, IRD also co-organised the International Soil Conference in Petchabury from 18 to 21 August. The conference brought together more than 400 researchers.
Organised by IRD’s ethics and professional conduct advisory board and the Vientiane University of Health Sciences, this symposium was open to IRD researchers and their partners and was held in Laos on 26 – 17 October 2015. It brought together more than 230 people.
A symposium on botanical research in tropical Asia was held from 6 to 11 December 2015 in Vientiane (Laos), after similar events on ‘Flora in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam’ in Phnom Penh in 2008 and Hanoi in 2010. This event boosted North-South cooperation for the study of tropical flora. The participants came from several tropical Asian countries and shared their expertise in various fields such as taxonomy, plant systems, phytochemistry, biogeography, ethnobotanics and conservation.