Catherine Lagneau, BRGM Chair and CEO, and Pascal Berteaud, Director General of Cerema, signed the agreement in Paris on Thursday, 4 June 2026, to strengthen and perpetuate their partnership.
© BRGM
BRGM, the French geological survey, and Cerema, the public spatial-planning authority responsible for adapting regions to climate change, have signed a framework agreement aimed at strengthening and perpetuating their complementary capabilities with regard to issues that affect regions, in particular those linked to natural hazards such as coastline retreat, slope stability and the shrinkage and swelling of clay-rich ground.
A five-year partnership to serve the regions
Catherine Lagneau, BRGM Chair and CEO, and Pascal Berteaud, Director General of Cerema, signed the agreement in Paris on Thursday, 4 June 2026, to strengthen and perpetuate their partnership over the next five years.
The new framework agreement formalises their long-standing cooperation, based on the complementary missions of the two organisations:
- BRGM, the French geological survey, provides knowledge of the ground and subsurface (mapping, modelling, groundwater, mineral resources, geological hazards and anthropogenic risks). From research to implementation, it supports risk prevention measures and sustainable regional management.
- Cerema, the regional engineering authority, transforms this knowledge into operational responses for spatial planning, infrastructure, mobility, coastal management and risk prevention.
Objectives of the BRGM-Cerema partnership
- Exploit the complementary nature of BRGM's knowledge of the ground and subsurface and Cerema's operational expertise in spatial planning, mobility and infrastructures.
- Strengthen partnerships on specific issues: coastline, slope stability, subsurface/surface interactions in urban environments, small-scale geothermal-energy systems, clay shrinkage and swelling.
- Focus on developing collaboration in two spheres: research & development and international action.
- Improve coordination of joint actions and projects for France and its regions through improved national and regional governance.
Operational and coordinated interventions
This complementarity has already led to concrete joint initiatives under the previous agreement:
- With respect to landslides, Cerema and BRGM have worked together under the CatNat expertise scheme, with a geographical distribution of interventions and the possibility of intermittent reciprocal reinforcement in the event of overloading due to exceptional climatic events (e.g.: Storm Alex, Hurricane Fiona). These missions are programmed and monitored at the national level.
- The two institutions have also worked together to provide expert appraisals of local problems such as landslides, boulder falls and instability in cavities (e.g.: Les Mées, le Vescorn, the Orléans cavities).
- They are co-coordinating the drawing-up of roadmaps for dealing with natural hazards, led by the Ministry of Ecology, involving all government authorities involved in this field.
- The two institutions are also working closely, alongside Ademe, on the reduction of coastal landfill sites.
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