Environmental inequalities in the management of coastal amenities and risks (INEGALITTO)
Communauté d’Agglomération de La Rochelle, Charron, St-Brieuc Armor Agglomération – France
Project leader: La Rochelle University, UMR LIENSs
Dates : 2016-2020
Classification
Risks
Solutions
Actors
Costs
Summary
The coastline is both attractive and highly exposed to sea hazards. Besides being an area subject to anthropic pressure, territorial and social inequalities are also very much present between the coastal zone and the hinterland. While the shoreline is often perceived through its recreational functions that users are reluctant of seeing altered, it is rarely for the risks it may entail. The local populations are not always aware of the levels of risk involved. These attitudes can sometimes lead to intense opposition towards heavy protection policies (dykes, riprap, fixing the coastline). Yet, now that society is compelled to become aware of its environmental impact, new forms of governance are emerging. In light of these observations, it is relevant to address this duality of the coastline through the concept of environmental inequality, which allows for a systemic analysis of the relationships between a population and its territory.
The INEGALITTO project aimed to assess the impact of coastal management strategies in terms of “environmental inequalities”. The concept of environmental inequality allows for a systemic analysis of the relationship between a community and its environment. This study applied to the Communauté d’Agglomeration de la Rochelle, Charron and Saint-Brieuc Armor Agglomération, allowed for:
- the spatializing and quantifying of inequalities related to coastal risks and amenities
- the analysis of the local community’s perception of these inequalities and behaviour towards management policies
- the outline of the consequences these policies can have regarding environmental inequalities.
Actions
The INEGALITTO project uses the concept of environmental inequality for a systemic analysis of the relationships between a population and its territory. This project has three objectives:
- To spatialise and quantify inequalities related to coastal risks and amenities on the French coast using a unique methodology;
- To analyse how these inequalities are perceived and how people behave with regard to them and coastal management policies;
- To examine the consequences of these policies in terms of environmental inequalities.
This research project was applied to three study areas, chosen for their exposure to the risks of submersion and erosion and for the strategies deployed to manage their coastline as an amenity but also as a territory at risk: Aytré, Saint-Brieuc and Charron.
Outcomes
This project resulted in the identification of three main trends.
First, the hypothesis that the most disadvantaged populations would also be the most exposed to natural or anthropogenic risks and the furthest from natural or urban amenities is not as easily verified in the two case studies. The situation is even more complex for La Rochelle, a medium-sized coastal town, where other factors come into play.
A second core result concerns the unequal treatment between territories and their capacities to cope with coastal risks. Following the Xynthia storm, Charron and Aytré had uneven access to the State council; while some used their political leverage, others carried out numerous measures on their own in a domain that was unfamiliar to them. Similarly, populations did not have the same capacity to overcome the disaster, with persisting fears among the Charronnais population, whereas risks appear to have been normalised in Aytré. These results were demonstrated by the interviews conducted among residents and confirmed through legal analysis.
Finally, this last legal approach highlighted three types of inequalities:
- (1) legal inequalities, excluding some people from the local informative or participatory process;
- (2) environmental inequalities, leading in some cases to a reduction in the exposure of one part of the population to risk, while another faces unchanged or aggravated exposure;
- (3) property inequalities, due to an increase in the value of certain assets, particularly those less exposed or better protected from risk, or conversely a devaluation of assets that are more exposed or already damaged.
The INEGALITTO project concludes that the environmental inequalities existing on the coasts studied can be reinforced by risk management strategies in the short and medium run. These strategies, in addition to the French insurance system (national solidarity), may tend to reinforce or at least favour the maintenance of an affluent population on the coast (in the case of the construction of grey defensive structures), without solving the problem of the exposure of these populations to marine hazards, in the long term. On the one hand, the issue is deferred to future generations that will sooner or later have to decide on a new strategy and will have to bear the costs for many years. On the other hand, relocation appears to be a more “cost-effective” solution in the long term, reducing the exposure of the populations concerned and reducing the costs to society (no maintenance or development of protective infrastructures required).
The results of this project are only valid for the cases of La Rochelle and St Brieuc and cannot be extrapolated to all French coastal towns.
Partners
Technical partners: Regional and local authorities
Financial partners: Fondation de France