In 2021, ADEME (the French Agency for Ecological Transition) launched a call for expressions of interest to support local areas committed to reducing land artificialization, as part of the Climate and Resilience Law (LCR) and the Net Zero Land Take (ZAN) objectives. Twenty-two territories were selected to receive support tailored to their specific needs.
The goal: identify projects that address the unique challenges of each area while offering sustainable solutions.
Among the selected territories is the Communauté d’Agglomération des Deux Baies en Montreuillois (CA2BM), located in western Pas-de-Calais. The project is supported by CLS, a geomatics expert with over 30 years of experience. CLS has assisted CA2BM in building a local ZAN observatory to monitor land use changes and support sustainable planning.
Using advanced technologies, the aim is to regularly update territorial data to support adaptive land-use planning and informed decision-making.
Mr. Quentin Valcke, Director of Ecological Transition and Active Mobility at the Communauté d’Agglomération des Deux Baies en Montreuillois, tells us more
Quentin, can you tell us about the project?
“The goal of our commitment is to prepare tomorrow’s territory to meet the demands of the ZAN policy. It’s about identifying the levers we need to activate in order to plan development that is more rational, more resource-efficient, and ultimately more sustainable,so we can preserve the quality of life for residents in a region that is both fragile and vulnerable.
D’u In very practical terms, our objective was to equip ourselves with a tool that could help us assess the many dimensions of land-use planning—one that respects the environment while providing the services our population needs.
That’s where our cartographic observatory comes in—because geomatics offers powerful analytical potential, and maps are especially effective tools for education and awareness.
The idea is to develop a decision-support tool and make it available to elected officials, technicians, planners, and local stakeholders. But of course, it must be backed by a real land-use and development strategy, one that meets the goals of ecological transition and carbon emission reduction.”
What were the results?
“Together with CLS, we developed an innovative geomatics tool that combines our local data with national datasets, giving us a dynamic and accurate view of our territory—particularly in terms of land consumption and planning prospects—while applying the Avoid-Reduce-Compensate (ERC) sequence to development potential.
The methodology can be adapted to other territories, but it requires adjusting the parameters and queries to match the specific characteristics of each area.”
How did your collaboration with CLS go?
“Very positively. CLS supported us with their technical expertise and were attentive to our needs. The challenge with this observatory was to combine our user requirements with the technical capabilities of the tool. CLS guided us in defining what was possible, and together we built the observatory.
The collaboration required us to understand how geomatics could translate our territorial questions into usable queries, and on CLS’s side, to integrate the specific features of our territory and embrace the iterative nature of building the tool.”
35 Years of Expertise Serving Territories
A specialist in the processing and use of geographic and Earth observation data, CLS produces, verifies, analyzes, and provides land use and land cover databases over time and space for local, regional, national, and even transnational authorities.
