“Environmental and social dynamics of risks”

Heads:

Gilles ARNAUD-FASSETTAProdig : Pôle de Recherche pour l’Organisation et la Diffusion de l’Information Géographique (UMR 8586)
Edwige DUBOS-PAILLARDGéographie-cités (UMR 8504)

Presentation:

This Work-Package has set out to provide a comprehensive approach to risk that is at once qualitative and quantitative. This will be accomplished by analysing all of risk’s components, from hazards to risk prevention and management, including the capacity to understand and assess vulnerabilities, anticipate threats, manage crises and post-crises, and develop individuals’, societies’ and territories’ resilience and ability to adapt.

The WP aims to take a systematic approach to risk by tackling different types of threat (natural, environmental, health, political risks, etc.). It also intends to consider the processes that encourage not only risk generation on the ground, on different spatial and temporal scales, but also the factors that exacerbate the various vulnerabilities to these risks. It also factors in the variety of the biophysical environments (coastal areas, mountains, etc.) and that of the territories and societies.

Accordingly, our research will focus on six major cross-cutting areas:

1. deepen our knowledge of the hazards, and understand and model the interactions between the environment and society;
2. differentiate the vulnerability of the populations and social-spatial inequalities;
3. examine environmental change and societies’ responses;
4. investigate the political aspects of risk and anticipate threats;
5. crises, disasters and post-disaster periods;
6. risk cultures and representations and knowledge of risks.

Core sampling on an avalanche deposit to determine the composition and density of the snow cover (H. KERN / 2019)

Keywords:

Disasters, vulnerabilities, resilience and adaptation, environmental changes, risk and crisis management, anticipating threats and disasters, social and spatial inequalities.

Research fields:

  • air / atmosphere;
  • countryside;
  • cryosphere;
  • islands;
  • industries;
  • seaboards;
  • urban fringes;
  • mountains;
  • rivers;
  • oases;
  • towns / large cities.

Publications:

  • ALONSO J.M., BASTOS DE MORAIS GUERRA C.A., DE OLIVEIRA MARTINS I.P., ARNAUD-FASSETTA G., MARQUES A., DA SILVA COSTA F. (2014) – Risco de cheia e inundação: exposição e adaptação na área ribeirinha de Ponte de Lima. Territorium, 21, 33-48.
  • ARNAUD-FASSETTA G., LANDURÉ C. (2015) – Fluvial risk in rural areas from the Greek period to the early Middle Ages: The case of the Rhône delta (France). In (Arnaud-Fassetta G., Carcaud N. Eds.) French Geoarchaeology in the 21st Century. CNRS Editions, Paris, 213-234.
  • BERTRAND F., VERDIN F., EYNAUD F., ARNAUD-FASSETTA G., STÉPHAN P., COSTA S., SUANEZ S. (2019) – Potentialities and landuse constraints of the coastline of the Haut-Médoc in the protohistoric times: A palaeo-risk-based approach. Quaternaire, 30, 1, 97-111.
  • BÉTARD F., PEULVAST J.-P. (2019) – Geodiversity Hotspots: Concept, Method and Cartographic Application for Geoconservation Purposes at a Regional Scale. Environmental Management, 63(6), 822-834.
  • BOULIER J., DUBOS-PAILLARD E., PAVARD A., SANSEVERINO-GODFRIN V. (2018) – La difficile mise en application locale de la politique de prévention des risques. In Lutoff C., Durand S. (dir) Mobilités face aux événements hydrométéorologiques 1. Définition des échelles de référence. Collection écologie, Iste éditions, Londres, pp 161-198. https://iste-editions.fr/products/mobilites-face-aux-evenements-hydrometeorologiques-extremes-1
  • BROUSSE G., ARNAUD-FASSETTA G., LIÉBAULT F., BERTRAND M., MELUN G., LOIRE R., MALAVOI J.-R., FANTINO G., BORGNIET L. (2019) – Channel response to sediment replenishment in a large gravel‐bed river: The case of the Saint‐Sauveur dam in the Buëch River (Southern Alps, France). River Research and Applications, 1, 14, https://doi.org/10.1002/rra.3527.