Post-disaster recovery, understood as the set of measures allowing to restore an acceptable functioning of the territory, is a concept which has appeared relatively recently in the scientific and geographical literature of risks. It can be, yet not automatically, addressed by collective and individual, planned and spontaneous coping strategies, which the objectives may vary according to the interests. The anticipation of reconstruction is a major challenge to optimize the integration of a preventive ethic and, more generally, to facilitate decision-making in the post-disaster period. The study of the phases of the process through medium- and long-term feedback allows us to identify rules, and to define constraining factors and pitfalls in the one hand, and favourable conditions and means of action in the other hand, regarding the Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation to pursue Sustainable Development objectives. This method combines the social science surveys, documentary analysis and GIS, and is carried out several years after the disaster. To illustrate the reasoning and clarify the links between adaptations and resilience, we rely on the analysis of two post-disaster reconstructions in the French metropolitan area: the Aude department after the floods of 12 and 13 November 1999, and the Dracenie area (Var department) following the floods of 15 and 16 June 2010. They are also completed by an analysis of the evolution of risk and disaster management perceptions, and an analysis of long-term memory in the municipality of Cuxac-d'Aude. Examples of adaptations have been integrated into the reconstruction but opportunistically without a real overall strategy. It appears that the catastrophic event alone cannot be the trigger for an increase of resilience and a real strategy of adaptation to risk. Henceforth, the implementation of a preventive reconstruction cannot be improvised: the anticipation effort is as necessary as necessarily limited by the need for ad hoc adjustment of recovery strategies.
Moatty, A; Vinet, F; Defossez, S; Cherel, JP; Grelot, F
Integrating a preventive ethic in the post-disaster recovery process: resilience, adaptations and preventive reconstruction
Houille Blanche-Revue Internationale De L Eau