Team

TEAM

The EPHor research unit is composed of 14 permanent staff (professors / assistant professors, engineers and technicians), all of whom are attached to the MilPPaT (Physical Environment, Landscape, Territory) teaching and research department via two teaching units, " Horticultural and Urban Soil and Growing Media" and "Physics of Transfers and Bioclimatology".

The EPHor research unit conducts its activities primarily in the contexts of horticulture, and urban and peri-urban agronomy. It is also responsible for soil mapping projects in the Pays-de-la-Loire region.
Its fields of expertise are:

  • characterization of the physical and hydric properties and evaluation of the agronomic quality of horticultural growing media and urban soils
  • water transfer in the soil-plant-atmosphere continuum under restricted irrigation conditions
  • spatialization and expertise of soils, their properties and functionalities,
  • coupled carbon and nitrogen cycles in the soil-plant-atmosphere system,
  • the evaluation of microbial activities and functions of horticultural growing media and urban soils,
  • characterization and modeling of the distribution of the microclimate in the vicinity of plants in horticultural and urban context.
  • evaluation of the climatic benefits brought by vegetation on the thermal comfort of the inhabitants in urban environment

The research unit is currently managed by Patrice Cannavo.

EPHor activity is articulated around 2 contexts:
 

1. Horticulture context

Pierre-Emmanuel Bournet, professor in transfert physics
Patrice Cannavo, professor in soil science and agronomy
René Guénon, assistant professor in soil microbial ecology
Etienne Chantoiseau, assistant professor in mass and energy transfer and bioclimatology
Jean-Charles Michel, assistant professor  in horticultural growing media and agronomy of soilless crops
Rousseau Tawegoum, assistant professor in automation and electricity

2. Urban and peri-urban context

Pierre-Emmanuel Bourne, professor in transfert physics
Patrice Cannavo, professor in soil science and agronomy
Etienne Chantoiseau, assistant professor in mass and energy transfer and bioclimatology
René Guénon, assistant professor in soil microbial ecology
Sophie Herpin, assistant professor in fluid mechanics and environmental measurements
Laure Vidal-Beaudet, professor in in civil engineering applied to landscape
Christophe Ducommun, engineer, coordinator of the soil mapping program in the Pays-de-la-Loire region, and coordinator of the RMT “sols et territoires”

Executive secretary and manager: Christine Durand

Technical support:
Soil physical and chemical analysis technicians: Yvette Barraud-Roussel and Céline Levron
Technicians in physical measurements, instrumentation, experimentation: Dominique Lemesle and Lydia Brialix