Réflexions sur les notions et les méthodes en géographie des risques dits naturels

• DOI: 10.3406/geo.2002.21624
• Publication Date: 2010-02-04T11:23:56Z
• Authors: Patrick Pigeon
• Keywords: méthodes ; aléa ; épistémologie ; vulnérabilité ; analyse systémique. ; notions ; Géographie des risques dits naturels; 05 social sciences; 0507 social and economic geography; Natural hazard geography ; system analysis ; methods ; epistemology ; vulnerability ; hazards

Given the recent development of a so-called geography of natural hazards, the notion of natural hazards has been given different definitions, which all try, not always without contradictions, to solve the dilemma posed by the hazard/ vulnerability opposition. This paper discusses the epistemological issues raised by those definitions, whose evolution is better accounted for by using a method derived from the system analysis of risk in geography. It has lead us to propose a redefinition of risk through an integrative notion of damaging. Likewise, the relevance of a posteriori phenomenological approach is noted, in spite of the numerous difficulties which arises when dealing with the damage evidences that are essential to this method.