Du riverain au résident : évolutions des liens à l’eau et culture locale du risque

Au regard de l’histoire longue d’un milieu de marais, l’article propose de suivre les évolutions récentes, de 1960 à nos jours, des usages de l’eau lors du glissement d’un village agricole à une zone urbaine. L’analyse se concentre sur les transformations dans le temps des relations qu’entretiennent les habitants d’une ville du sud-est de la France avec un fleuve. De la zone agricole d’hier – où les habitants conjuguaient leur vie à l’irrégularité du fleuve, vivant au gré de ses crues, contraignantes mais fertilisantes – au quartier urbain d’aujourd’hui – où l’on habite pour l’intérêt géographique et paysager que la situation octroie, entre ville, mer, et axes de transport, tout en se protégeant fermement du risque inondation –, le mot riverain a perdu de son sens, altérant les possibilités de développement d’une culture locale du risque. In the perspective of the long history of a wetlands environment, the article proposes to monitor the recent and rapid changes in water use on a territory that has shifted from a rural to an urban area. The study site, Lattes, is an upper middle-class suburban neighborhood located in southeastern France on the Mediterranean coast that has experienced very rapid growth. It was developed on wetlands and still remains vulnerable to flash floods. Our analysis focuses on the changes in the relationship between inhabitants and water over time and its implications for the local risk culture. From the former agricultural area – where local inhabitants adjusted to the irregularity of the river regime, their lives tuned to the river floods that were constraining as well as fertilizing – to the current urban and popular neighborhood – where inhabitants have settled for the geographical and landscape values offered both by the environment and the availability of inter-city, sea and transport connections, while actively controlling flood risks. In this situation, the term “riparian inhabitant” has lost its meaning.