PhD Position F/M Resilience of Telecommunication Infrastructures to Climate Change — Modeling, Impact Analysis, and Adaptation Strategies for Next-Generation Networks

Context
Collaboration between two teams :
COATI :
https://team.inria.fr/coati/

• Joanna Moulierac :https://www-sop.inria.fr/members/Joanna.Moulierac/

SIGNET :
https://signet.i3s.univ-cotedazur.fr/

• Guillaume Urvoy-Keller : https://webusers.i3s.unice.fr/~urvoy/
• Dino Lopez : https://webusers.i3s.unice.fr/~lopezpac/
• Clément Courageux-Sudan : https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NukX4T0AAAAJ&hl=fr

Funded by PEPR Carecloud : https://carecloud.irisa.fr/
Main activities
Context and Problem Statement
Telecommunication infrastructures (fixed and mobile access networks, backhaul networks) are critical components of modern socio-economic functioning. However, as highlighted by ARCEP in its note on network resilience [6], these physical infrastructures are highly exposed to the direct and indirect impacts of climate change. Extreme weather events (heatwaves, storms, floods, wildfires) as well as long-term trend shifts (rising average temperatures, sea level rise) degrade service quality, increase failure rates, and threaten to weaken isolated areas [1, 2].
While initial scientific research and exploratory studies (such as Master's thesis work based on local open data) have established empirical correlations between weather conditions and network incidents on a small scale, several major scientific roadblocks remain to generalize these approaches to a national and predictive scale:
Spatio-temporal heterogeneity and granularity of data:
Crossing complex time series (weather metrics, RIPE Atlas active/passive probes, ARCEP/operator incident reports, physical network topology) requires processing noisy, incomplete, and asynchronous data.
Causality vs. Correlation:
Distinguishing failures directly caused by climate factors from those resulting from cascading failures (e.g., power grid outages, traffic saturation during crises).
Prospective uncertainty:
Anticipating the vulnerability of future network generations (5G standalone, 6G, fiber densification) under various IPCC climate scenarios for the 2030–2050 horizon.
Scientific Objectives of the Thesis
The main objective of this thesis is to build a systematic, automated, data-driven methodology to assess, predict, and enhance the resilience of telecommunication networks in the face of climate hazards.
The research will focus on the following axes:
1. Data Aggregation, Coupling, and Advanced Mapping
Extending the cross-analysis between meteorological time series (Météo-France / Copernicus), incident data (ARCEP), and fixed/mobile access quality (RIPE Atlas, crowdsourced data) across the entire French territory.
Developing standardized metrics to measure the weather-climate vulnerability index of a piece of equipment or a network node.
2. Explanatory Modeling for Causality Detection
Designing statistical models capable of identifying root causes of incidents and detecting cascading failure propagation (e.g., the impact of a heatwave on cooling systems in cell sites or optical distribution frames / NROs).
Accounting for cross-dependencies with other critical infrastructures (specifically the ENEDIS/RTE power distribution network).
3. Prospective Inference and Resilience Optimization Strategies
Simulating network behavior under various future extreme climate scenarios (IPCC / Météo-France projections).
Proposing redeployment strategies, hardware hardening, or emergency dynamic routing to minimize the risk of global disconnection during extreme events.
Scientific Roadblocks and Expected Contributions
Scaling and automation:
Moving from a local exploratory analysis (departmental scale) to an automated data processing pipeline for high-volume streams at a national scale.
Systemic resilience:
Providing a unified theoretical framework combining physical infrastructure characteristics (material exposure) with the dynamic behavior of data traffic flows.
Public and industrial decision support:
Delivering a risk assessment tool that regulators (ARCEP, ANSSI) and operators (Orange, SFR, Bouygues Telecom, Free, Axione) can use to guide network hardening investments.
Bibliographic References
[1]
Padmanabhan, R., et al. "Residential links under the weather."
Proc. of ACM SIGCOMM
, 2019.
[2]
Durairajan, R., Barford, C., & Barford, P. "Lights out: Climate change risk to internet infrastructure."
Proc. of ANRW
, 2018.
[3]
Météo-France — Open data platform (meteo.data.gouv.fr).
[4]
RIPE NCC — RIPE Atlas Infrastructure (atlas.ripe.net).
[5]
ARCEP — Incident tracking and mobile network status (arcep-dev.github.io/siteshs/).
[6]
ARCEP — Networks of the future: The resilience of electronic communications networks, Summary Note.
Skills
Technical skills and level required :
Languages :
Relational skills :
Other valued appreciated :