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<p dir="ltr">The recent surge in water levels within the Great Lakes has laid bare the vulnerability of the surrounding coastal areas. Over the past few years, communities along the Great Lakes coast have struggled with widespread coastal transformations, witnessing phenomena such as shoreline retreat, alterations in habitat, significant recession of bluffs and dunes, infrastructure and property damage, coastal flooding, and the failure of coastal protection structures. Unlike the ocean coasts, the Great Lakes coastal regions experience a unique confluence of large interannual water level fluctuations, coastal storms, and ice cover dynamics, which complicates the ongoing coastal management endeavors. To address this multifaceted challenge, the interplay between all these factors and their impact on coastal changes should be understood and applied to improve the resilience of Great Lakes coastal areas.</p><p><br></p><p dir="ltr">In this dissertation, several steps were taken to improve knowledge of coastal processes in the Great Lakes, spanning from the initial use of remote sensing for quantifying coastal changes to the subsequent stages of modeling and predicting shoreline changes as well as leveraging machine learning techniques to simulate and forecast influential factors like waves and ice cover. First, a fully automated shoreline detection algorithm was developed to quantify the shoreline changes in Lake Michigan, detecting the most vulnerable areas, and determining the main factors responsible for the spatial variability in the shoreline changes. Additionally, a reduced complexity model was designed to simulate the shoreline changes in Lake Michigan by considering both waves and water level fluctuations, which significantly improved the shoreline changes modeling and forecasting for Lake Michigan. Furthermore, new deep learning-based frameworks based on the Convolution Long Short-Term Memory (ConvLSTM) and Convolution Neural Network (CNN) were introduced to model and extend the current records of wave heights and ice cover datasets, adding 70% and 50% data to the existing waves and ice time series respectively. Finally, the extended waves and ice time series were used to study the long-term trends and the correlation between the interannual water level and waves changes, revealing a statically significant decreasing trend in the ice cover over Lake Michigan of 0.6 days/year, and an increasing trend in the waves interannual variability at Chicago area.</p>

La théorie transgouvernementale s’appuie sur l’existence de réseaux transfrontaliers entre composantes de l’État exerçant des fonctions similaires dans une optique de gestion de problèmes communs. Le transgouvernementalisme canado-américain se caractérise par un faible abandon de souveraineté des partenaires, une forte participation des acteurs régionaux, une informalité dans les relations et une intégration des secteurs privé et public et de la société civile au sein de réseaux mixtes. Le modèle de gouvernance binationale en place dans la région du bassin du Saint-Laurent et des Grands Lacs présente toutes les caractéristiques du modèle typique d’intégration transgouvernementale canado-américain. Une analyse poussée révèle en effet une matrice complexe et solide de réseaux transgouvernementaux dont les multiples ramifications s’étendent aujourd’hui beaucoup plus loin que le strict cadre des ententes sous l’égide desquelles ces réseaux ont pris naissance. Si le modèle de l’intégration par réseaux transgouvernementaux apparaît comme la solution retenue par les pouvoirs publics dans la gestion collaborative du bassin du Saint-Laurent et des Grands Lacs, s’agit-il du modèle à privilégier en ce qui a trait à la gouvernance du Passage du Nord-Ouest? Bien que le modèle en place dans la région du Saint-Laurent et des Grands Lacs ne puisse être reproduit intégralement relativement à la gestion du Passage du Nord-Ouest, un modèle d’intégration transgouvernementale, du « bas vers le haut », axé sur la mise en place d’une réglementation commune en matière de navigation et sur une intégration opérationnelle visant à assurer la mise en œuvre de cette règlementation, s’avère approprié pour la gestion du Passage du Nord-Ouest. / Transgovernmentalism is based on the existence of transboundary networks between sub-national entities exercising similar functions in order to address common issues. Canada-United States transgovernmentalism can be characterised by limited relinquishment of sovereignty by partners, significant participation of regional actors, informality in the relations and the integration of the private and public sectors and civil society into mixed networks. The governance model in place in the St. Lawrence basin and the Great Lakes region presents all the features of the typical model of Canada-United States transgovernmentalism. A thorough analysis indeed reveals a complex and strong matrix of transgovernmental networks which ramifications now extend far beyond the strict framework of agreements under whose auspices these networks arose. However, if transgovernmentalism is the solution adopted by both governments for the collaborative management of the St. Lawrence basin and the Great Lakes, it is an appropriate governance model for the management of the Northwest Passage? Although the model in place in the region of the St. Lawrence basin and the Great Lakes can not be entirely reproduced for the management of the Northwest Passage, a “bottom-up” transgovernmental model focused on the implementation of common rules in the field of navigation, and on collaboration at the operational level to ensure the implementation of this regulation, is appropriate for the management of Northwest Passage.

La publication de Théorie de la justice par John Rawls en 1971 a apporté un nouvel élan à la philosophie politique. Plusieurs commentaires et critiques de ce livre ont ainsi nourri la réflexion sur la question de la justice sociale dans son application à l’échelle mondiale. Dans ce livre, l’auteur a démontré entre autres que la démocratie libérale permet aux citoyens ayant diverses conceptions du bien, conceptions religieuses, philosophiques ou morales, souvent incompatibles et irréconciliables, d’avoir par ailleurs une conception politique de la rectitude morale et de la justice comme fondement de la structure de base de leur société. Ceci permet alors de soutenir l’unité politique et sociale de cette structure sur une base rationnelle et raisonnable. Par la suite, dans The Law of Peoples, Rawls a présenté un autre projet, celui d’étendre cette conception à la ‘Société des peuples’ qui, pour lui, est une idéalisation du regroupement des peuples qui respectent les idéaux et les principes du ‘Droit des peuples’ dans leurs relations mutuelles, le ‘Droit des peuples’ étant, pour Rawls, une conception politique particulière de la rectitude morale et de la justice qui s’applique aux principes et aux normes du droit et des usages internationaux. Ce projet de Rawls est, comme il l’a nommé lui-même, une utopie réaliste. Partant de cette dernière comme d’un prétexte, notre étude s’inscrit dans un champ de recherche particulier de la philosophie politique, à savoir l’éthique des relations internationales. Elle se veut une contribution à l’élaboration d’une réflexion normative portant sur les principes fondamentaux de justice dans l’ordre international tel qu’il se présente dans les institutions qui l’incarnent aujourd’hui encore, comme le système des Nations Unies, et sur les conséquences de cet ordre dans l’intégration des pays de la région africaine des Grands Lacs. D’où ces questions : Qu’est-ce que l’utopie rawlsienne change-t-elle à l’ordre mondial actuel? Ses principes fondent-ils une éthique susceptible d’améliorer les relations internationales? Quelle serait la place des pays africains, et plus spécialement ceux de la région des Grands Lacs, dans l’ordre mondial inhérent à ce projet? Les réponses à ces questions déterminent ce qui pourrait être considéré comme l’éthique de la gouvernance démocratique globale et les structures pouvant l’incarner. / The publishing of A Theory of Justice by John Rawls in 1971 brought a new impetus to political philosophy. Several comments and critical analyses of this book have thus provided food for thought on the issue of social justice in its application on a world scale. In this book, the author has demonstrated, among other things, that liberal democracy allows citizens with different conceptions of good – whether religious, philosophical or moral – often incompatible and irreconcilable, to have, otherwise, a political conception of moral rectitude and justice as the foundation of the basic structure of their society. This allows to support the political and social unity of this basic structure on a rational and reasonable basis. Subsequently, in his book The Law of Peoples, Rawls presented another project, that of extending that concept to the “Society of Peoples” which, for him, is an idealization of the regrouping of those people who respect the ideals and principles of the Law of peoples in their mutual relations, the “Law of peoples” being, for him, a particular political conception of moral rectitude and justice that is applicable to principles and standards of international law and customs. This project, as Rawls called it himself, is a realistic utopia. Based on the latter as an excuse, our study is in keeping with a particular field of research in political philosophy – namely, the ethics of international relations. It is intended as a contribution to the development of a normative reflection on the fundamental principles of justice in the international order as it is found in the institutions that still embody it nowadays – such as the United Nations Organization – and on the consequences of that order in the integration of the countries of the African region of the Great Lakes. This raises questions such as: What changes does the rawlsian utopia bring to the current world order? Are its principles the basis for an ethic susceptible of improving international relations? What would be the role of African countries, particularly those of the Great Lakes, in the world order inherent in this project? The answers to these questions determine what could be considered the ethics of global democratic governance and the structures which embody it.

Ce travail se propose d’examiner les conséquences du décès parental précoce sur la trajectoire biographique des enfants, dans un régime de mortalité où la principale perturbation n’est pas le VIH/SIDA, mais une grave crise socio-politique. Le Burundi est l’un des épicentres du conflit traversé dans les années 90 par la région des Grands Lacs. A l’aide des données de l’Enquête Socio-Démographique et de Santé de la Reproduction (ESDSR) menée au Burundi en 2002, nous analysons l’impact du décès parental précoce sur un grand nombre de dimensions du parcours de vie des enfants burundais: mortalité, violence et exploitation sexuelle, séparation des membres de la fratrie, scolarité, entrée précoce dans le travail, ressources, conditions de l’héritage, entrée dans la vie reproductive et familiale. Ces analyses sont menées selon l’âge de l’enfant au moment du décès d’au moins un de ses parents, tout en cherchant à évaluer l’effet de la cause de décès des parents (crise/autre cause) sur les résultats obtenus. On montre que la perturbation du parcours de vie des enfants ayant précocement vécu le décès de leur père est mineure. A l’inverse l’expérience précoce de la mère ou du dernier parent survivant affecte la plupart des dimensions de la trajectoire biographique des enfants. La crise burundaise amplifie et, dans certains cas, transforme voire renverse la relation entre l’expérience précoce du décès d’au moins un parent et la trajectoire des enfants. L’orphelin à cause des massacres de masse de 1993 est un orphelin « politique » dont la protection et le soutien par les instances politiques, militaires, administratives et humanitaires est devenu un enjeu de la crise elle-même. / The aim of this paper is to analyze lifetime effects of parental death during childhood, in a country context where HIV/AIDS isn’t the main cause of death among young adults but deaths caused by a major socio-political crisis. During the 90’s, Burundi hosted the cradle of the regional conflict in the Great Lakes. A 2002 demographic, social and reproductive health survey in Burundi (ESDSR) will provide us the information required to analyze impact of early parental death, on a complex panel of life perspectives for children: mortality, violence and sexual abuse, separation of siblings, schooling, working at early age, resources, heritage, early marriage and age at first birth. These analyses are led by child age at early parental death, along with an attempt to estimate the effect from the cause of this death (crisis or other) on results. The strength of leading conclusions is consolidated by the mean of exchanging results, these results being derived from several analysis methods: bivariate and multivariate logistic models adapted or not to clustered data (standard, multilevel, marginal and fixed-effects logistic regressions).We bring lights on the minor effect of early father loss on child life trajectory. On the contrary, early mother or last living parent death experience affects almost every child life trajectory. Burundi crisis emphases but in some cases, reverses those effects from negative to positive. 1993 mass slaughters orphans are “political” orphans. Their political, military, administrative and humanitarian protections became part of the main goals, in the crisis itself.

This dissertation scrutinises two related claims that were particularly heightened in 2009 as the European Union (EU) was celebrating the first tenth anniversary of its European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP), the implementing arm of its Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). First, the two policy frameworks allegedly embodied sufficient added value for bettering EU intervention for human protection purposes in third places. Second, the ESDP supposedly enabled the EU to make a difference in its response to two bloody wars that broke out in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Congo) successively in 1996 and 1998. This thesis argues that the alleged added value and difference have been overstated at best. While various studies have taken a similar position, they have important shortcomings for at least four reasons: lack of a comprehensive account of the CFSP motives, capacities, and response; exclusive focus on civil and military operations; focus on the post-Second Congo War period; and a lack of conceptual clarity regarding two key terms – ‘conflict resolution’ and ‘peacebuilding’. This thesis goes beyond generalisation and undertakes a forensic examination of the CFSP statements, decisions, and actions precisely through the lens of Conflict Resolution (CR): a specific subject area of study with its own normative, theoretical, and practical advantages and shortcomings; and with a more comprehensive and indeed seminal conceptualisation of peacebuilding. The outcome is a far more nuanced assessment of failure and success of the EU’s peace endeavours in this context than can be obtained through a broad-brush approach to analysis.

La pacification de l’Afrique des Grands Lacs mise à feu et à sang au cours de ces deux dernières décennies est le but ultime de cette thèse. Face au revers qu’ont connu plusieurs initiatives visant à mettre fin aux violences dans cette région, notre préoccupation a été de chercher dans le kantisme une nouvelle raison d’espérer. Ainsi, ce travail tente de montrer comment l’héritage philosophique de Kant peut contribuer au rétablissement de la paix et au développement au Rwanda, au Burundi et en République Démocratique du Congo, trois pays de cette région, meurtris par des guerres. Notre démarche a été d’examiner la pensée morale et politique de Kant dans laquelle nous avons trouvé les fondements de son modèle, élaboré dans un contexte de guerres en Europe. La discussion sur sa réception et la montée du nationalisme stigmatisant le cosmopolitisme kantien, nous a conduit à établir un lien entre la promotion, par le régime nazi, de la race aryenne supposée être supérieure à d’autres et considérée comme modèle d’organisation sociale, et la propagation des préjugés similaires par l’administration coloniale en Afrique des Grands Lacs postulant la suprématie des Tutsi « faits pour régner » sur les Hutu et les Twa, simples nègres voués à la servitude. Instrumentalisé par les politiques soucieux de conquérir le pouvoir, ce « jugement raciste », sans fondement, sera une des causes de l’hécatombe génocidaire dans laquelle seront engouffrés le Rwanda et le Burundi avant d’étendre ses effets sur le Congo où les conflits prendront une dimension économique et impliqueront plusieurs pays africains et d’autres acteurs non africains. Cependant, capitalisant la réémergence du cosmopolitisme reprise par les fondateurs de la SDN et ceux de l’ONU, nous avons souligné la pertinence de la coopération et l’articulation des différences comme préalable à une paix durable. Avec Ricœur et Arendt, deux post-kantiens, nous avons lancé les jalons de réconciliation dans les trois pays, en nous référant à l’expérience franco-allemande et sud-africaine. Nous avons souligné l’importance de la réforme des institutions onusiennes et celles des États de la région pour qu’à travers le républicanisme naisse l’état de droit. L’hospitalité exprimée par le cosmopolitisme et le commerce international dans la pensée kantienne, se traduirait par la coopération interétatique et la fusion des organisations régionales en une union économique et monétaire qui poserait les bases d’une fédération d’États africains et garantirait une paix durable sur le continent et dans la région des Grands Lacs. / The pacification of the African Great Lakes plagued by violence during these last two decades is the ultimate goal of this thesis. After the failure of several initiatives to end violence in the region, our concern was to look in the Kantism a new reason to hope. Thus, this work attempts to show how the philosophical legacy of Kant can contribute to peace and development in Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo, three countries of the region ravaged by wars. Our approach has been to consider the moral and political thought of Kant in which we found the foundations of this theory of peace developed in the context of wars in Europe. The discussion of its receipt and the rise of nationalism stigmatizing the Kantian cosmopolitanism, has led us to establish a connection between the promotion by the Nazi regime of the aryan race supposed to be superior than others and considered as a model of the social organization, with the spread of similar prejudices by the colonial administration in the African Great Lakes applicant Tutsi supremacy "created to rule " the Hutu and Twa, simple doomed to slavery negroes. Exploited by politicians anxious to gain power, this "racist judgment," unfounded, will be one of the causes of the genocidal massacre in which will be engulfed Rwanda and Burundi before extending its effects on the Congo, where conflicts will take an economic dimension and involve a number of African countries and other non-African actors. However, capitalizing the reemergence of cosmopolitanism recovery by the founders of the League of Nations and those of the UN, we have stressed the relevance of cooperation and articulation of differences as a precondition for lasting peace. With Ricœur and Arendt, two post-Kantians, we launched the foundation for reconciliation in the three countries, referring to the Franco-German and South African experience. We stressed the importance of the reform of the UN institutions and states of the region so that through the republicanism the state of law should be promoted. The hospitality expressed by cosmopolitanism and international trade in the kantian thought, would result states’ cooperation and the gathering of regional organizations in an economic and monetary union which would lay the foundation of a federation of African states and ensure a lasting peace on the continent and in the Great Lakes region.

With a volcanic origin, Lake Kivu is deep and meromictic, and shows a very particular limnology and some astonishing features. The data available on its limnology and phytoplanktic communities are limited, dispersed or outdated. This is the first deep, long term study (2002-2004) on limnology and phytoplankton ecology of Lake Kivu, combining different techniques: HPLC analysis of marker pigments, flow cytometry, light, epifluorescence and electron microscopy. Lake Kivu combines a relatively shallow euphotic layer (~18m) usually smaller than its mixed layer (20 – 60 m), and with a weak thermal gradient in the mixolimnion. With an annual average chlorophyll a in the mixed layer of 2.2 mg m-3 and low nutrient levels in the euphotic zone, the lake is clearly oligotrophic. Concerning its phytoplanktonic composition, the most common species were the pennate diatoms Nitzschia bacata Hust. and Fragilaria danica (Kütz.) Lange Bert., and the cyanobacteria Planktolyngbya limnetica (Lemm.) Komárková-Legnerová and Cronberg and Synechococcus sp. Diatoms were the dominant group in the lake, particularly during the dry season episodes of deep mixing. During the rainy season, the stratified water column, with high light and lower nutrient availability, favoured dominance of cyanobacteria. Phycoerythrin-rich phototrophic picoplankton and heterotrophic bacteria cell numbers were constantly high, with relatively subtle spatial, seasonal and vertical variations. In open lake waters, where allochthonous carbon inputs are most probably inconsequential, HNA heterotrophic bacteria abundance is strongly correlated with chlorophyll a. Recent investigations revealed an increasing methane production in the deep waters during the past three decades, leading to an accumulation of gas and the subsequent lowering of the energy required to trigger a devastating release of gasses. The role of primary producers and the probable changes on the export ratio of the organic matter into deep waters after the introduction of the planktivorous sardine from Lake Tanganyika Limnothrissa miodon, is discussed. The actual primary production, 0.71 g C m-2 d-1 (~ 260 g C m-2 y-1), doesn’t seem substantially different from some punctual measurements made in the past, which discards the hypothesis of anthropogenic eutrophication. We believe that the export ratio of organic matter into the deep waters was largely affected by biological changes that could explain part of the methane increase in the past 30 years in Lake Kivu.

Total phosphorus concentrations in the open waters of the Laurentian Great Lakes are currently at or beneath target concentrations set by international agreement. Despite the success of phosphorus loading controls in remediating nearshore eutrophication problems in the past, nuisance growth of Cladophora has recently returned to the lower Great Lakes. This thesis examines soluble reactive phosphorus (SRP) in a northwestern segment of Lake Ontario to assess whether allochthonous or autochthonous sources of phosphate lead to localized areas of PO43- enrichment that may help to explain the seemingly paradoxical resurgence of Cladophora. As SRP is often an overestimate of PO43- in P-limited waters, measures of SRP made with the standard method were compared with measures of SRP made with modified methods (i.e., using dialysis and magnesium-induced co-precipitation) designed to more accurately measure phosphate when it was expected to be at low concentrations. Measures of SRP made with standard and modified methods did not differ, however, SRP was 1 to 3 orders of magnitude higher than a more sensitive steady-state radiobioassay for PO43- used for comparison in offshore waters. Although the utility of SRP is limited when phosphate concentrations are very low, SRP is useful to measure localized areas of phosphate enrichment, and its relative concentrations can be compared in time and space. To quantify the degree to which allochthonous inputs and dreissenids contribute to PO43- concentrations that permit Cladophora growth, intensive sampling for SRP was carried out prior to, during and following the Cladophora growing season. SRP was higher in the nearshore than offshore and near the mouth of a large tributary and a treated wastewater outfall than in samples from other locations along the shoreline, but only in the spring and autumn. Phosphate turnover times indicated lower P-limitation in the nearshore and near local inputs versus the offshore. Higher concentrations of SRP were measured in samples taken 15 cm and 50 cm above dreissenid mussel-beds than in those obtained at corresponding depths over other substrata and from higher up in the water column through the Cladophora growing season, while Chl a concentrations displayed the reverse trend. These results suggest that PO43- excreted by dreissenids could be more important in time and space than external inputs in supporting nuisance Cladophora growth in the current nearshore environment. Continued research and monitoring of P dynamics in the nearshore combined with model approaches should better predict whether more stringent P controls would be effective in managing Cladophora growth.