Dr Jean ALBERGEL – Emeritus Senior Scientist at IRD, Honorary Fellow of the African Academy of Sciences - is a Senior scientist in hydrology, (Phd University Pierre & Marie Curie, Paris 6). He joined IRD in 1979 and spent most of his career in Africa; especially in semi-arid countries where he addressed four related scientific topics: (1) infiltration processes, runoff, erosion and fluxes transfers at the scale of cultivated catchments, (2) impacts of climate variability on water resources, (3) water and land management and ecosystems services under threat from climate change, (4) nexus water, energy, food security. 

He has participated in many EU projects in water resources management since the 2nd Framework programme. More recently, he has participated in the FP7 and H2020 institutional cooperation projects on Africa – EU policy dialog in Science and Innovation. From 2011 to 2014, he chaired the European Sub-Group on Science in the framework of the AU-EU 8th Partnership in Science, Information Society and Space.

Recently, he took part in the UN Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR 2019). He coordinates the IRD activities in the LEAP-AGRI project (co-funded by the EU through H2020). He co-chaired the scientific committee of the conference “Groundwater, key to the Sustainable Development Goals”, UNESCO, IAH-CFH, IHP International Conference UNESCO, Paris, France. May, 2022.

He is member of different network and association: International Association of Hydrological Sciences (IAHS), Science Europe, the Desert Net International (DNI) and of the French Scientific Committee on Desertification (CSFD).