Impacts des inondations en Suisse: processus d'apprentissage, gestion du risque et aménagement du territoire

• Forschungsstelle: COST
• Projektnummer: C05.0143

Schlüsselwörter (Englisch)

Risks; floods; territorial planning; urban infrastructures; vulnerability; crisis management; danger maps

Forschungsprogramme (Englisch)

COST-Action C19 - Proactive crisis management of urban infrastructure

Partner und Internationale Organisationen (Englisch)

CH, CS, CZ, DE, FI, FR, GR, IT, NL, NO, PT, SI, UK

Abstract (Englisch)

The project follows a first project that studied the impacts of floods in Switzerland on knowledge on risk. The first project focused on three case studies: floods in Saillon/Valais (October 2000), Lully/Geneva (November 2002) and a case study in the Thur River valley. This project is divided in two parts. The first one is a fourth case study on learning processes through catastrophes. It is based on more than 25 in-depth interviews with actors involved in the recent floods of the Aare River in the Matte Quartier in Berne (2005). The case study allowed us to analyse the effects of two floods (1999, 2005) and the territorial changes that occurred between1999 and 2005. Several conclusions are different respect to the other cases. In Berne, because floods have been frequent in the past, all the actors have a good knowledge on flood risk. Two groups of actors have a particularly good knowledge: the professionals of flood risk and river management, and the professionals of crisis intervention (firemen, police). Between 1999 and 2005, very few measures were adopted to prevent new catastrophes. One reason seems to be that the1999 event was a bi-centenal flood and it was considered that a new flood would statistically not happen for several decades. Moreover, the 2005 catastrophe showed that the processes (dynamic flood, wood transport) were quite different from one event to the other. The second part of the study concerns the issue of danger mapping. Maps of dangers are currently prepared in all cantons. One important issue is the implementation of the results of maps in territorial planning documents, especially local plans. Based on the analysis of the practice in three cantons (Geneva, Fribourg and Valais), the study shows that the practice varies from one canton to the other, due to the fact that territorial planning is a cantonal competence. One main issue is the fact that land owners should have the possibility to contest the perimeters of danger zones (even if the danger map is considered as a scientific document): some cantons (Geneva, Fribourg) include danger perimeters as a layer of the local territorial plan, whereas the canton of Valais creates a specific plan of danger zones – that can be contested by the public – and includes then the danger zones – as indicative information – in the local territorial plans. The study showed also that because danger maps are a new instrument of territorial planning, practice is not fixed at the moment.

Datenbankreferenzen (Englisch)

Swiss Database: COST-DB of the State Secretariat for Education and Research Hallwylstrasse 4 CH-3003 Berne, Switzerland Tel. [phone] Swiss Project-Number: C05.0143