2. BIP : Rural areas facing Climate Change

This Blended Mobility Program aims to cross views of the tropical and continental remote territories facing climate changes and realities of new rurality. In the light of the recent crisis and the desire of many people living in cities to reconnect with the countryside, a reversal of the rural exodus is observed. The desire to return to greater proximity with the food-producing areas, the sprawl of the fabric, the desertification of the soils, added to climate changes raise a certain number of problems: 

— How to preserve this quality of life, this proximity? 
— How can we reconcile some of the contributions of modernity with local customs and traditions? 
— How can we design infrastructures and systems that are more resilient to climate change (water management, landscape preservation, energy autonomy, etc.)? 

These are the issues and problems that arise in the Mafate Circus in La Réunion, in the deserted remote rural areas near Alicante, in the heavy flooded countryside of Wallonia and Germany. 

By comparing their solutions and local approaches, these case studies will be an opportunity to reflect on the problems of water management in all its forms, but also on food and energy autonomy. A research by design will allow to think on new  ways of developing rural areas in very different contexts.