Dossier « Territoires en transition environnementale » – Gérer le risque de submersion marine par la dépoldérisation : représentations locales et application des politiques publiques dans le bassin d’Arcachon

Abstract

Résumé -Abstract -Managing coastal flooding risk through depolderisation: perceptions of local stakeholders and implementation of public policies in the Arcachon Bay (France). In the Arcachon Bay, researchers and local players are reflecting together on the ways to deal with the broadly acknowledged risk of coastal flooding and its management methods. The latter waver between the currently implemented harder management method and a softer one based on different levels of depolderisation. The depolderisation technique is being investigated through an interdisciplinary, comparative and multiscalar approach. If handling risks of coastal flooding through depolderisation may seem paradoxical, scientific studies have highlighted the interest of this defence approach, especially to curb swell and reduce defence costs. In the south-eastern part of the Arcachon Bay, the Barcasub programme (Liteau, MEDDE) is thus investigating the positive and negative effects of potential management methods as regards defence, economics, landscapes and ecology. Locally, the policies and uses regarding reclaimed areas have turned markedly green since the 1970s. However, both the social perception of the risk and of depolderisation, cannot be said to have turned green as well. In fact, this defence method would certainly lead to a change in polder management or in territorial uses. The study also leads us to reflect on the overall defence of the Arcachon Bay currently in process through hard and soft coastal protection measures. Through its comparative as well as multiscalar approach of the reclaimed areas, our research programme aims to establish the scales at which depolderisation actions could be relevant.

From physical geography to environmental geography: Bridges and gaps (a French perspective)

“…Such initiatives are promising for they contribute to overcoming the nature‐culture divide from a geographical point of view, which interestingly complements the insights from anthropology (Descola ). Other examples of attempts to integrate approaches from the human and physical components of geography can be found in the field of environmental risks (e.g., Douvinet et al ; Leone et al ; Goeldner‐Gianella and Bertrand ; Anselme et al ). The current development of theoretical and quantitative physical geography might also offer a timely framework for bridging the gap with human geography.…”

Research on the Risk Assessment of Qingdao Marine Disaster Based on Flooding

“…And the RISC-KIT (resilience-increasing strategies for coasts-toolkit) index-method was applied in the Molise region, which takes the natural, social, and economic factors into consideration and focuses on the hazard and exposure indicators. Moreover, the dynamic models were coupled with the RISC-KIT index-method which paid attention to coastal vulnerability and risk from the perspective of the storm surge and sea level rise in England, Italy, Poland, and other countries [4,[23][24][25][26]. Other research has addressed this topic from a terrestrial science perspective and focused on flooding caused by urban rivers and the impact of disaster losses, while ignoring the natural processes related to the unique source of flooding in coastal zones [20,23,[27][28][29].…”