On December 7, 2023, 51 professionals in and outside the region participated in the exchange day "Heritage the soil: research and transmission" at the European Conservatory of soil samples (CEES) organized by the National Research Institute for Agriculture, food and environment (INRAE) Centre-Val de Loire, Orléans.
Co-designed by the Regional Directorate for Cultural Affairs (DRAC) and the Regional Academic Delegation for Research and Innovation (DRARI) of the Centre-Val de Loire region, this unprecedented dialogue revealed several priorities to be shared by these two networks of actors:
- The shared training of professionals,
- The creation of shared research programs,
- Joint promotion of knowledge among citizens.
The soil is indeed a complex living and non-living environment with multiple functions. Both the support of earthly life and the foundations of human constructions, it is a source of raw materials, water and energy. Playing a role of archiving human history and activities, with a regulating function of substance and energy cycles, it filters, modifies and stores water and elements.
It plays a major role in human activities and is an essential material for feeding living beings, but also for manufacture buildings, utilitarian or artistic objects. However, soil is a non-renewable natural resource on a human scale: it is threatened by erosion, contaminants, lower levels of organic matter, reduced biodiversity, settlement, salinization, artificialization, flooding and landslides.
The World Soil Day (WSD) made it possible to share the news of public policies related to this field, which is at the heart of science and society issues.
Three round-table discussions were held to share news about research and its dissemination, as well as the diversity of vocabularies:
- . Is soil a material like any other?
- . Citizen science transfer knowledge, empower earthlings;
- . Restoring, rehabilitating, repairing: new practices in the Anthropocene era.
The visit of the European Conservatory of Soil Samples (CEES) showed why the raw earth (with the technique of adobe) was chosen in 2013, because of its aesthetic qualities, its physical characteristics, associated with the symbol of soil conservation. This collective INRAE tool, implemented in 2003 for soil samples collected as part of the Soil Quality Measurement Network (RMQS), aims to ensure the long-term conservation of soil samples. Its activities have subsequently expanded to include samples from national soil inventory programmes and samples from scientific soil monitoring programmes, such as the European project Integrated Carbon Observation System (ICOS).
Next days of exchange of the seminar Essential :
- 18 March 2024, musée des beaux-arts, Chartres (28): Collection and post-collection in museum collections: prospective balance in Centre-Val de Loire
- 16 April 2024, Tours (37): Acquire, conserve and disseminate contemporary practices in heritage facilities
- 25 June 2024, Museum of Fine Arts, Angers (49) : Risk Prevention in Heritage Buildings (Stream 1)
- November 2024, Saumur (49) date and place to be confirmed : Heritage and food
- December 2024, Blois (41) date and location to be confirmed : Risk Prevention in Heritage Buildings (Stream 2)
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