This postdoctoral research focused on risk/territory relationships and the processes of territorialized management of major risks, particularly in urban areas. It was conducted by LabeX Futurs Urbains and involved three laboratories: LATTS, headed by Valérie November; LEESU, headed by Gilles Hubert (now Lab'Urba) and José-Frédéric Deroubaix; and Lab'Urba, headed by Jocelyne Dubois-Maury. As such, the research included an experimental dimension of inter-laboratory work and was designed to address the issues faced by operational actors.
Context:
In a context of widespread urbanization, or even metropolization, and climate change, the articulation of urban and territorial development issues with those of natural or technological risks is becoming crucial, and urban development actors can hardly avoid it (Regghezza, 2006, Beucher, 2008). This issue of the "territorialization of risks" has been identified as a major challenge for the Paris metropolitan area (Beucher, 2007; Beucher and Reghezza-zitt, 2008), which is characterized by:
– strong pressure on land, with available land often located in flood zones;
– a politically highly invested metropolitan project known as “Grand Paris.” The Grand Paris Express project (dedicated to public transportation) in particular will contribute to the construction of metropolitan-scale territories;
– a particularly complex institutional context in terms of government services, with numerous powerful local actors with often divergent interests, caught up in both local and national economic and political issues;
– a discourse on the possibility of disaster through the famous "flood of 1910" (a once-in-a-century event). An OECD study (2014)2 shows that the cost would be a real economic disaster, compounded by the slow recovery in degraded mode once the flooding is over.
Numerous studies have explored the issues of territorialization, the relationship between urban planning and risk prevention, and how risks help shape territories and vice versa (Brun and Adisson, 2011; Brun and Gache, 2013; Daluzeau et al. 2013; Meschinet de
Richemond and Reghezza, 2010; November 1994, 2004, 2011; November et al., 2008; Rode 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012). In addition, a great deal of academic and operational work is currently being carried out to understand how and under what conditions it is possible to innovate in the development of risk-prone areas.
Fieldwork:
As part of a research agreement between Labex Futurs Urbains and the ORSA public development agency, we were able to conduct part of our survey within the EPA (in the executive sphere, Strategy Department), with easy access to data and the opportunity to attend meetings on an urban project in a flood zone upstream of Paris, Les Ardoines. From a methodological point of view, this can be described as an "embedded research" approach: presence within the EPA, observation of meetings, analysis of documents produced by project stakeholders, semi-structured interviews, as well as numerous more informal discussions. This led to a particular perspective on the part of the researchers, who approached the case study from the standpoint of the Public Development Agency (EPA), the project owner, which is not neutral, regardless of the efforts made to maintain distance. The material collected (
Public d'Aménagement (EPA), the project owner, which is not neutral, regardless of the steps taken to maintain distance. The material collected (interviews, observations, a very rich database) was mainly subjected to qualitative analysis. It should be noted that the process we sought to document is not yet complete, and that the reading carried out as part of the project is not intended to conclude the analysis or establish a definitive account of the facts. Rather, the aim is to highlight a particularly crucial moment in the project under observation (2013/2014) by placing it in context, based on the information available to us, which may be supplemented in due course by monitoring the project over the coming years.
Results:
This case study proved to be both exemplary, as it highlights common difficulties in this area, and atypical, as the "resilient" project that was ultimately adopted is more ambitious in terms of "living with water" than the legal minimum, namely the requirements of the Flood Risk Prevention Plan (PPRI). Analyzing the trajectory of this project has enabled us to:
– identify certain obstacles to innovation in the development of flood-prone areas;
– reflect on what the term "resilience" can mean in an operational context;
– highlight the key factor that made innovation possible in this case: the integration of crisis management issues into the development arena.
This last point is probably the main contribution of the project, as it emerges at the intersection of two historically autonomous and curiously separate academic and operational fields: risk prevention through/by development and crisis management.
There is indeed an institutional and temporal disconnect between the planning and crisis management arenas: with the exception of mayors, who combine expertise in both areas, the actors are different, both at the state level and at the level of local authorities and technical services responsible for implementing these policies. The rationales for action in these two arenas diverge profoundly and are part of timeframes that are difficult to reconcile (Levin et al., 2007): planning, when designed with sustainable development in mind, has a horizon of around 100 years, and urban projects are developed over a time horizon of at least 20 to 30 years. On the other hand, the world of crisis management, even if it develops medium-term thinking, is constrained by an almost seasonal timeframe. The representative of the Defense and Security Zone explains, for example, that their concrete problem is to be as operational as possible for this winter, then for the following winter. This divergence implies different ways of working (particularly in the examination of files) and a mutual difficulty in understanding each other's issues.
In this inherited and relatively undiscussed context, our case study shows how the argument of action and crisis management can help to shift the boundaries in a development process. In fact, this argument has made it possible to shift the debate to a different level and a different time frame: we are thinking about the long-term development of a space, but the future is no longer a vague, stable, and distant concept. It is a future made up of events that will need to be managed that is entering into today's logic of action, which highlights the limitations of the different arenas: development is no longer without effect or consequence on future action (crisis management), and crisis management can no longer be imagined solely as a "plan" detached from reality.
Ultimately
, we have had to update a process of integration (or even instrumentalization) of the issue of action in situ (through crisis management) into the planning process. This phenomenon is quite atypical and seems to be linked to issues and constraints that are very specific to the territory concerned, as well as to the commitment of certain actors. We are therefore probably dealing with a special case, a first in the Paris region, which is particularly interesting in light of the questions we have raised and the ongoing discussions on sustainability and adaptation (Berdoulay and Soubeyran, 2014): by making dependence on time horizons a lever for action—rather than an insurmountable problem—our case study opens a breach in what appeared to be a super wicked problem
(Levin et al., 2007).
These results have given rise to two main papers, in France and Quebec, as well as a publication to be released in 2016 (Créton-Cazanave, L., J.-F. Deroubaix, G. Hubert, J. Dubois-Maury, V. November. (Under review). "Possibilities and conditions for the emergence of 'resilient urban planning' in flood-prone areas. The example of Les Ardoines, in the Paris region. In Climate Change and Urban Planning
(provisional title), Ed.: F. Rudolf.)
Keywords: Major risks, Territorialization, Urban Projects, Action in situations