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Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)
As a French public science and technology research institute under the joint authority of the ministries in charge of research and overseas development, respectively, the “Institut de Recherche pour le Développement” (IRD), formerly “ORSTOM” (1954-1998) has three main missions: research, consultancy and training. The institute is committed with scientific programmes contributing to the sustainable development of countries in the Southern Hemisphere, with an emphasis on the relationship between man and its environment in tropical areas. The institute's manpower amounts to more than 2100 people, among whom about 830 are plain researchers, 40% of which working overseas in 34 centres around the world.
The IRD scientific activities are organized through five departments: 1) Earth and Environment; 2) Living Resources; 3) Societies and Health; 4) Expertise and Consulting; 5) Support and Training. Approximately 100 Research units (UR) are grouped under the first three scientific departments mentioned above. Several of these URs are dedicated to tropical climate variability and its regional impact, as well as dynamics and uses of marine, coastal and inland aquatic ecosystems. Half a dozen of these URs are presently involved in cooperative projects with several Chilean and Peruvian institutions on these topics in the Humboldt Current system. Some are more oriented towards physical oceanography, others to fisheries activities, and others are dedicated to climate variability at different time scales.
The oldest IRD activities specifically dedicated to ENSO impacts upon the coastal environment of the study area dealt with paleoclimatological research, and reconstruction of former El Niño events in Peru. This research, which concerned altogether geological, palaeontological, paleohydrological, biological and documentary studies, was later extended to northern Chile. Different cooperative programmes between IRD (UR PALEOTROPIQUE and LODYC) and IMARPE (Instituto del Mar del Peru), the University of Antofagasta and the Univ. of Chile have been developed (and are still very active) on the theme of the impact of climate variability (particularly ENSO) on the coastal ecosystem of the study area of northern Chile and Peru. Ongoing research activities include understanding of the relationships between upwelling, oxygen minimum zone and ENSO impacts along the coasts of western South America, reconstruction of former climate variability at interannual to decadal scale, and recognition/validation of sea surface temperature fluctuation records within the carbonated skeletons of coastal mollusks. In the IRD facilities at Bondy many geochemical, petrographical and mineralogical analyses can be performed on carbonates, water samples and sediments, while the LODYC lab (in Paris) offers stable isotope (oxygen and carbon) analyses, radiocarbon dating, physico-chemical oceanographic analyses, beside national expertise in numerical treatment of climate and oceanographic data. Another IRD unit (in association with IFREMER) involved in the project and based near Brest, is the LASAA (Sclerochronological lab) which is particularly dedicated to the study of fish otoliths.
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