OZCAR: French network of Critical Zone Observatories: Research and Applications

OZCAR-RI (Critical Zone Observatories, applications et research) is a national research infrastructure (RI) launched in December 2015. Supported by the French Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, this initiative aims to federate observatories and instrumented sites in France and partner countries that are exploring different compartments of the Critical Zone and are funded on a recurrent basis by different national research institutions (CNRS, INRAE, IRD, BRGM, ANDRA, METEOFRANCE), a large number of French Universities and occasionally by various research projects. The PIA, through the Equipex program CRITEX, funded an instrumental facility now shared by the OZCAR observatories.

OZCAR-RI is a network of networks comprising twenty-one research observatories each of them built on a question of societal importance and more than 60 instrumented sites ranging from plots to the largest river basins in the world. These observatories have been developed by different research communities but all issued from the geosciences community sensu lato

The governance of OZCAR is made up of decision-making, executive and advisory bodies that ensure the implementation of the scientific objectives divided into 5 main ambitions (or work package).

The scientific animation of OZCAR-IR is funded by the Allenvi Alliance, CNRS, INRAE, IRD and BRGM.