[Thesis defence] 19/12/2024 - Ondine Le Fur "Landscape as a means of understanding fire risk and involving residents on the outskirts of metropolitan areas: urban planning, risk representations and a participatory approach in a France-Australia comparison." (UMR ESPACE DEV)

Ondine LE FUR will submit her thesis on 19 December 2024 on the theme: "The landscape as a means of understanding fire risk and involving residents in the metropolitan periphery: urban planning, representations of risk and the participatory approach in a France-Australia comparison".

Laboratory

UMR_D 228 ESPACE-DEV - Space for Development

Composition of the jury

MR PIERRE DERIOZ	Avignon University	Thesis supervisor
Ms MARIELLE JAPPIOT	French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment	Thesis co-director
Ms KARINE WEISS	University of Nîmes	Rapporteur
MR HERVE DAVODEAU	Institut Agro Rennes-Angers	Rapporteur
Ms CHRISTINE BOUISSET	University of Pau and the Pays de l'Adour	Examiner
MR THIERRY TATONI	Aix-Marseille University	Examiner
Ms RAPHAELE BLANCHI	Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation	Examiner
Ms ISABELLE CHADOEUF	Ministry of Agriculture	Examiner

Summary

While the effects of climate change are making catastrophic fires both more frequent and more intense, and affecting more regions of the planet, the effects of widespread urban growth have greatly extended the areas exposed to the risk of forest fires. As a result, the vulnerability of people and property in habitat-forest interface zones, where human settlements are in close contact with natural areas, is constantly increasing. These areas require adaptation solutions that involve rethinking the way they are developed and the way we live in them on a daily basis.

The aim of this work is to examine the prevention strategy aimed at reducing the vulnerability of human assets, through an analysis of urban planning policy, the governance of decision-making systems, and the involvement of residents in the development of their properties and neighbourhoods. This research is underpinned by the lessons learned from a comparison between France and Australia, and more specifically between the metropolitan areas of Aix-Marseille and Melbourne.

A chronological approach to legislation in ten countries with Mediterranean climates helps to contextualise the emergence of the issue of fire prevention in urban planning, and provides a basis for comparing the regulatory instruments of prevention in France and Victoria. Within the framework of the French prevention doctrine, we first examine the expectations concerning the mapping of human stakes and propose a new approach for defining vulnerable urbanised areas according to their spatial structure. We then add the social dimension to the study of vulnerability by mobilising the landscape, as defined by the European Landscape Convention, as a tool for analysing the interactions between a place and its community. In a socio-spatial study, we explore the different forms of expertise that residents have regarding fire risk and their preventive adaptation in peri-urban districts of metropolitan Melbourne. Landscape is also being used as a promotional tool, to experiment with a participatory approach to landscape mediation on fire risk with local stakeholders in the Aix-Marseille Provence metropolis. Here, the landscape serves as a tangible support and a basis for exchange, encouraging residents to get involved in reducing vulnerability and facilitating interaction with elected representatives and managers. In conclusion, we discuss how some of the results of this research can be put into practice, such as the analysis of landscape morphology to assess vulnerability in a neighbourhood and the use of the landscape as a basis for dialogue and preventive action within the community.

Keywords fire risk, habitat-forest interface, urban planning, vulnerability, landscape, mediation

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