Les inondations du Rhône aval de 1856, 1993, 1994, 2003 et leurs répercussions sociétales

Floods of the Rhône river downstream in 1856, 1993, 1994, 2003 and their impacts on society

UMR 6012 ESPACE DESMID CNRS Université de la Méditerranée 1, rue Parmentier, 13200 Arles

Auteurs de correspondance : bpicon@wanadoo.fr paul.allard@wanadoo.fr

Abstract

The flood of 1856 is a new behavior on behalf of the State. Napoleon III inaugurates a media treatment which is still present nowadays. He utilised the telegraph and the railroads, and so he can go to the place of the catastrophe. This voyage is compassionnel, reflected in the newspapers, it serves the immediate political interests of the Empereur. Later the Emperor lays down a policy of protection in his letter of Plombières of the summer 1856. May 28, 1858 a law is voted for the protection of the cities against the floods. On the sociological viewopoint, the analysis of the floods of 1993-94 revealed three shifts which can be interpreted like aggravation factors of the risk. A symbolic shift marked by the designation of the polder of Camargue as “natural space”, a normative shift in measurement or the management has not been adapted to the contemporary change, a social economic shift due which had not taken into account the complexification that this agrarian company inherited the 19° century. The flood of 2003 revealed that the new provisions of local management of the risk were still insufficient. It had as consequence the creation of a broader device on the basin scale of the river, the “Rhone plan”.