What can resilience bring to disaster prevention: Examples taken in Lavours and Chautagne (Ain, Savoie - France)

Résumé 0

This paper sheds light on how the notion of resilience, in spite of its limitations, may contribute to a better understanding and management of disaster risk. The method used draws on two sites close to the Rhône, where flood hazard is similar to some extent. The first one is located in the municipality of Culoz, close to Lavours Marshes. The other is situated in Chautagne, in the municipality of Chanaz. Yet, the two cases show opposing risk management strategies. Understanding the differences in both risk management and local development policies makes it possible to identify the reshaping of three major approaches to risk prevention. These are: hazard-centred, territory-based, and, today, a resilience-oriented approach. Considering those successive and intertwined risk approaches helps us to understand why the notion of resilience is so polysemic, why it potentially carries so many inherent contradictions and why it is so frequently questioned. Yet, drawing on the same elements, it is possible to defend why an integrated approach of resilience might be useful for understanding and managing risk. It could make both the benefits and shortcomings of disaster risk prevention policies more visible and explicit.