Christian Depraetere (PhD, Sorbonne, 1984) is hydrogeomorphologist at the French National Research Institute for Sustainable Development* and based in Montpellier at the Remote Sensing Centre.
He worked in various countries in Africa (including Madagascar) on the implementations of hydro/precipitation data base and hydro meteorologic monitoring. He was part of projects on environmental issues in the Balkanic region, the Caribbean, the Pacific and the Mediterranean.
He is the co-conceptor of the Global Island Database (GID, WCMC/IRD, 2010) and the Base de données Insulaires Mondiale (BIM, IRD, 2019) which paved the way to the present Global Island Explorer (GIE, USGS/WCMC/ESRI, 2020). Both GID/BIM includes climatic, hydrologic and biomic clues for islands greater than 1 km².
As member of ISISA*, his present main research focuses on the geohistory of insular regions in various part of the world to unfold large scale and “longue durée” processes of dispersal, diffusion and migration from the Neolithic to the present time.
* Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD)
**ISISA: International Small Island Studies Association.