Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Les crues meurtrières, du Roussillon aux Cévennes//Casualty-causing flood : from the Roussillon region to the Cevennes country

2001; Armand Colin; Volume: 110; Issue: 622 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3406/geo.2001.1704

1777-5884

Jean‐Marc Antoine, Bertrand Desailly, François Gazelle,

Water management and technologies

Floods in the Mediterranean part of France have been the subject of a lot of writing but an ultimate aspect remained to be dealt with from a geographical point ofview: people who lose their lives during these floods. Specialists take into account all the relevant geographical aspects that directly or indirectly influence these rises in the water level. First of all, they review the natural causes which generate hazardous factors such as potentially dangerous showers, torrential rain potential occurrences and lands exposed to flooding. Then, specialists try to list and analyse the spatial distribution of deadly floods by sites, streams, county and they add the criterion of gravity (indeed one flood can cause more victims than many others). Moreover, this analysis is completed in connection with the notion of time, for instance, in history periods, peaceful ones and seasonal distribution of deadly floods, and the slots of such events during the day. From then on, they endeavour to delimit the circumstances when human catastrophes occur and which social groups suffer more from these disasters.