BRGM 2021 Prize Awards.
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BRGM's remarkable results are enhanced by annual awards
The BRGM awards have been organised since 2017 to celebrate the outstanding achievements of BRGM staff over the past year.
The purpose of this competition for excellence is to show recognition for employees who have achieved outstanding results for the image and reputation of the BRGM group. It also helps convey BRGM's values and promote its scientific activities, such as publications, theses, innovation and transfer to companies.
For this 2021 edition, four prizes were awarded by the juries:
- innovation award;
- scientific publications award;
- thesis awards (with two prizewinners).
BRGM Innovation Award 2021: predictive mapping of mineral resources
The innovation prize is a reward for one or more BRGM Group employees who have completed the development of an innovation during the year (a product, software or service, etc.) or a project which has achieved a remarkable result in partnership with industry.
The aim of the DROP project is to provide an innovative operational tool for predictive mineral resource mapping. It identifies the areas potentially most favourable for the discovery of a deposit, thus optimising the process of mineral prospecting. The project is the result of a collaborative effort between BRGM's geo-resources and information technology departments and is centred on 3 innovations based on the development of an original predictive mapping method (CBA, or Cell-Based Association) to which an artificial intelligence approach has been added.
BRGM Scientific Publications Award 2021
The Scientific Publication Award recognises an outstanding international scientific publication.
Cécile Hérivaux (BRGM), Fabrice Vinatier (LISAH Joint Research Unit) and Mohammed Sabir (ENFI), winners of the BRGM Scientific Publication Award for 2021, discuss the results set out in their article "Combiner scénarios narratifs, connaissances locales et modélisation des changements d'usage des sols pour replacer l'érosion des sols dans une perspective globale" ("Combining narrative scenarios, local knowledge and land use change modelling to provide an overall view of soil erosion"), published in Land Use Policy in 2021.
Soil erosion can be partly caused by water erosion. Mediterranean catchment areas are particularly affected by this phenomenon and it is now essential to explore the future dynamics of these areas to limit future water erosion. This is the subject of the ALMIRA research project to which the authors contributed. Their aim was to build plausible spatial scenarios that could be used to simulate water erosion phenomena.
BRGM Thesis Award 2021: Martin Le Mesnil
This thesis focuses on the influence of karst groundwater on river flooding, a phenomenon that is often described but difficult to quantify. The aim of this work is to improve understanding of flood phenomena and to make it easier to model in order to better manage the risk of flooding in karst catchment areas. Rainfall and watercourse flow records from 120 monitoring stations spread over 3 regions in France were used to establish indicators, identify the types of hydrological processes in catchment areas with a karst component and take them into account in forecasting models.
BRGM Thesis Award 2021: Raphaël Danino-Perraud - Special Jury Prize
This year, a decision was taken to award a special jury prize for this social science and humanities thesis on the economics of mineral resources.
Cobalt is a strategic mineral resource used in many components or products in our daily environment. This thesis focuses on the analysis of the value chain and flows of cobalt in Europe. It highlights an analysis of the dynamic material flows within the European Union, sets out a literature review on cobalt in products across the value chain and introduces the concept of the geopolitics of raw material value chains.
