Sous la forme d’une évaluation territoriale à dominante sociogéographique, l’article propose un regard critique sur la fabrique des politiques publiques du sport dans l’archipel français de Mayotte – territoire situé à l’entrée du Canal du Mozambique et sans nul autre pareil dans la République. Il évalue et corrèle trois dimensions symptomatiques du dysfonctionnement de l’action publique à destination des sports : les inégalités sociales (offre de services, engagement dans les pratiques, taux de pénétration des licenciés, etc.), l’absence de justice spatiale (destination d’usage, répartition et accessibilité des équipements) et l’incurie d’une gouvernance fragmentée (jeux d’acteurs, négociations, stratégies et concurrences institutionnelles, etc.). La contribution identifie toutefois des pistes de réflexion et trace des perspectives eu égard à la démocratisation, la diversification et la planification du sport dans l’archipel.
This article presents a case study on the reuse of treated wastewater for agricultural irrigation. It examines a project led by a municipality in the Salanque plain, located in the lower Agly valley in Roussillon, a Mediterranean region particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change on water resource availability. The geographical approach is based on the hypothesis that spatial configurations influence the strategies of social actors in the way they conceive and receive the project. Drawing on thematic mapping and semi-structured interviews, the study examines wastewater reuse as a way of reducing the vulnerability of agricultural activities to climate change. It demonstrates that the implementation of a technical innovation that transforms patterns of water extraction and use is deeply conditioned by the geographical context and the organisation of territorial structures.
Since the mid-twentieth century, migration from the French Caribbean to metropolitan France has shaped a migratory space whose consolidation has unfolded in several phases: initial labour migration, long-term settlement in mainland France, and increasingly intensified transatlantic mobility. This article examines the spatial expression of these migration dynamics within the host society. It draws on the detailed harmonized intercensal data from the French National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (INSEE) population censuses covering the period from 1968 to 2019. The analysis provides a dynamic account of the geographical dispersion of French Caribbean populations and their socio-spatial differentiation according to employment status and occupational category across metropolitan France. The geographical variation in the social profile of French Caribbean populations, particularly between Paris and other regions, calls for a reassessment of the conventional association between French Caribbean migration, public-sector employment, and settlement in the Paris metropolitan area. The findings reveal simultaneous processes of spatial concentration and diffusion originating from the capital region, reflecting the internal socio-spatial transformations of the migratory field. More fundamentally, the consolidation of this migratory space illustrates changing spatial relationships within French Caribbean societies, as an increasing share of their populations resides outside the islands and their geographical trajectories become progressively more transatlantic. Adopting a spatial perspective thus enables a more nuanced understanding of the social transformations shaping French Caribbean migration in France.
The Santa Cruz River, in the Colorado River Basin, is the principal intermittent river in southern Arizona. As the main source of surface water in this part of the Sonoran Desert, it has been intensively exploited (as has the groundwater in its basin), first for irrigation and then for urban development: the population of the region increased from 34,000 in 1920 to over one million in 2020, particularly around the city of Tucson.Like many other rivers around the world, the Santa Cruz River has been the subject of ecological restoration measures over the past thirty years. Based on field surveys conducted as part of the HYDECO project of the LABEX DRIIHM, this article examines the distinctive features of these intitiatives through three case studies: the “accidental” restoration of the Upper Santa Cruz Basin; the Sweetwater Project, a recreational wetland fed by recycled water; and the Heritage Project, in downtown Tucson, which is part of a broader urban renewal plan.In these three cases, we studied not only the concrete elements of restoration actions, but also, and above all, connectivity–that is, the problematic reconstruction of the connections between residents and the waterway.
This article examines the reconfiguration of mobility governance in France following the implementation of the 2019 Mobility Orientation Law (LOM). The study analyzes two levels: the mobility organizing authorities (AOMs), whose jurisdiction now extends across the entire country, and the mobility basins, which constitute the new framework for coordination among AOMs. The article examines these political and technical boundaries trough the lens of commuting patterns, to capture the diversity of mobility-related challenges. The analysis, carried out on mainland France, is based on a quantitative approach using commuting data from the population census (INSEE). A typology of four AOM profiles reveals the diversity of challenges arising from commuting considerations, including stable, outbound, and inbound flows. The news AOMs (created by the LOM) are characterized by outbound commuting flows, but also present distinct profiles. Surprisingly, the interest for AOM status is stronger among communities of municipalities that have the most intense workers exchanges with others AOMs, reflecting the importance of interacting with the Region as a legitimate interlocutor. However, mobility areas do not always correspond to an appropriate territorial scale for cooperation. Examining coordination challenges among inter-municipal communities with diverse profiles and regions opens up avenues for research under which spatial planning and mobility management can be better articulated.
This data paper presents a reproducible method for identifying national and supranational geographical entities mentioned in international news published by daily newspapers. The approach relies on a multilingual dictionary covering macro-regions (part of the world and political organisations) and nation-states in four languages (French, German, English, Turkish). The dictionary has been tested and validated on a corpus of news titles from five daily newspapers in France, Tunisia, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Turkey, spanning the period from April 2013 to March 2023. This corpus serves as an example of the dictionary’s application for elaborating geographical networks and geopolitical agendas.
This paper analyses urban-rural relations in Argentina’s Pampas region, where a pronounced divide has emerged under an agro-export model oriented towards distant ports and international markets. . The authors argue that rural and urban areas are not completely separated but are instead linked through a tension reflected in the discourses of local actors, which may serve as a basis for future actions and territorial governance strategies aimed at reconnection. The research examines the cases of Tandil and Chascomús, two cities with distinct characteristics: a medium-sized city with an active network of villages, and an agro-town characterised by beef cattle farmingBoth territories experienced the effects of globalisation and agricultural modernisation in the 1990s, including theproductive specialisation of rural areas, the decline of villages, and a widening urban-rural divide.To gather local stakeholders’ views of their territory, the study combined Social Cartography and Territorial Games. Embedded within an action-research framework, these methods elicited the discourses of local actors, revealing their perceptions, tensions, and aspirations concerning the territory and its future.The results reveal a shared vision among stakeholders, centered on reconnecting urban and rural areas, revitalising villages, diversifying agriculture activities, and fostering an integrated regional development strategy. The creativity displayed by local stakeholders shows that, despite having never experienced cities that are fully connected to their rural hinterland, they are capable of envisioning new forms of urban-rural integration as the basis for sustainable and inclusive local development.
Due to its island location in an intertropical zone (Rechou eta!., 2019), La Reunion is subject to a high occurrence of cyclones. The island has thus experienced 76 impacting storms and cyclones (Desarthe, Moncoulon, 2017) since the middle of the 17th century. The way in which risk management is organised by the State has changed considerably since then (Lorion, 2000a, 2000b). The aim of this article is to understand how the public perceives and interprets developments in risk management, by identifying the main influencing factors. To this end, three face-to-face surveys are dedicated to the cyclones Hyacinthe (1980), Fakir (2018) and Belal (2024), which have particularly marked the territory and played a key role in the evolution of cyclone risk management in La Reunion. A total of 1,179 people were interviewed across the island. The results highlight that residents' support for local public policies is underpinned by an awareness of the socio-economic changes of the past 45 years. Several markers of the cyclone culture on the island of La Reunion have been identified (sources of information, experience of risk, institutional legitimacy). These results raise questions about the ways in which the memory of events is preserved in La Reunion, and its links with risk management.
Analyzing healthcare accessibility though geographic approaches enables decision-makers to identify priority areas and allocate resources more effectively. Changes in scale not only modify the characteristics of the spaces under observation, but also affect the assessment that informs social, political, or economic decision-making.This paper examines and visualizes how shifts in scale influence the definition of healthcare accessibility in France — considering general practitioners, primary care providers, and services— as well as supply dynamics and socio-health needs. The study compares three spatial scales: municipalities, and two supra-municipal scales —territoires de vie santé used by the public authorities to define medically underserved areas, and Inter-municipal Cooperation (EPCI), employed by policymakers for local projects. A three-step method comprising scoring, principal component analysis and clustering, was applied to synthesize the multidimensional concept of healthcare accessibility. Scale-related discrepancies were analyzed using join-count autocorrelation indicators, Sankey diagrams, and Theil’s indices.The results identify seven classes of accessibility at the municipal level and five classes at the EPCI or territoire de vie santé levels. The spatial distribution of these classes reveals greater variability at the municipality scale than at higher levels of aggregation. The territoire de vie santé level retains the advantage of capturing diverse configurations of healthcare accessibility, while exhibiting lower heterogeneity within each area compared to the EPCI level. These findings underscore the importance of spatial contiguity and homogeneity in healthcare accessibility for mitigating information loss in multiscale aggregation processes.
Pesticide purchase data in France are published annually at the ZIP code level. Howerver, this spatial resolution is often too coarse in rural areas, which are noneless the most affected by sanitary and environmental impacts associated with pesticide use. This paper proposes a method to disaggregate these data to the French municipal level (i.e., & laquo; commune & raquo;), thereby facilitating spatial monitoring and integration with other datasets. The proposed approach is based on: (i) information on authorised pesticide application doses; and (ii) a geographical layer that accurately delineates surfaces subject to phytosanitary treatments. This method enables the precise allocation of more than 95% of the total quantity of active substances for the period between 2015 and 2020. These data can be used in epidemiology, agronomy, ecology, and economics, to investigate issues related to public health, agricultural systems, diffuse pollution and environmental damages.
Due to its island location in an intertropical zone (Réchou et al., 2019), La Réunion is subject to a high occurrence of cyclones. The island has thus experienced 76 impacting storms and cyclones (Desarthe, Moncoulon, 2017) since the middle of the 17th century. The way in which risk management is organised by the State has changed considerably since then (Lorion, 2000a, 2000b). The aim of this article is to understand how the public perceives and interprets developments in risk management, by identifying the main influencing factors. To this end, three face-to-face surveys are dedicated to the cyclones Hyacinthe (1980), Fakir (2018) and Belal (2024), which have particularly marked the territory and played a key role in the evolution of cyclone risk management in La Réunion. A total of 1,179 people were interviewed across the island. The results highlight that residents’ support for local public policies is underpinned by an awareness of the socio-economic changes of the past 45 years. Several markers of the cyclone culture on the island of La Réunion have been identified (sources of information, experience of risk, institutional legitimacy). These results raise questions about the ways in which the memory of events is preserved in La Réunion, and its links with risk management.
Pesticide purchase data in France are published annually at the ZIP code level. Howerver, this spatial resolution is often too coarse in rural areas, which are noneless the most affected by sanitary and environmental impacts associated with pesticide use. This paper proposes a method to disaggregate these data to the French municipal level (i.e., « commune »), thereby facilitating spatial monitoring and integration with other datasets. The proposed approach is based on: (i) information on authorised pesticide application doses; and (ii) a geographical layer that accurately delineates surfaces subject to phytosanitary treatments. This method enables the precise allocation of more than 95% of the total quantity of active substances for the period between 2015 and 2020. These data can be used in epidemiology, agronomy, ecology, and economics, to investigate issues related to public health, agricultural systems, diffuse pollution and environmental damages.
Although environmental compensation has become a cornerstone of contemporary environmental legislation, its visibility in both landscapes and public debate remains limited. This article provides a geographical analysis of the (re)location of Legal Reserves (RLs) in the agricultural frontier of western Bahia, Brazil. Legal Reserve are portions of rural properties set aside from productive activities to support environmental conservation within agricultural landscapes. They are mandatory and they must cover 20% of each property in western Bahia. Using public datasets from the Rural Environmental Registry (CAR) —Brazil’s public digital platform for monitoring environmental compliance— we developed a novel GIS-based methodology to trace RL compensation linkages across this vast territory. Our findings reveal four key patterns: 1) Compensation is extensively used by agribusiness, often involving long-distance transfers that displace conservation obligations eastward; 2) Compensated RLs frequently overlap with traditional community grazing lands, generating conflicts and constituting forms of green grabbing; 3) The mechanism demonstrates remarkable instability, with compensated areas regularly declassified to accommodate agricultural expansion; 4) Approximately 35% of compensations likely violate the Forest Code by regularizing properties that are not allowed to use this mechanism. We argue that the CAR system embodies “biased transparency” – offering unprecedented synoptic visibility of agribusiness environmental behavior, while obscuring crucial compensation linkages. This selective transparency enables large-scale farmers to use compensation strategically, facilitating legalized deforestation in the Cerrado while projecting an image of environmental compliance to international markets. The study demonstrates how digital environmental governance, while innovative, can be co-opted to serve agribusiness interests rather than conservation goals. We conclude that enhancing CAR’s transparency regarding compensation links is essential for both environmental effectiveness and social justice, particularly as the European Union tries to implement new regulations against deforestation-linked imports.
In 2021, the estimated number of deaths in Africa due to diarrhoeal diseases was 441,139. This situation is linked to fecal contamination of water, food, and hands modulated according to criteria relating to socio-health vulnerabilities. However, despite a consensus on the main factors that influence these vulnerabilities (age, gender, access to drinking water, etc.), there is no synthetic index to define their levels. To address this, the livelihoods framework and its capital-based approach were adapted and applied in the rural region of Bagre in Burkina Faso. Semi-directed interviews supported by a "stakeholder-guided GIS" were conducted to reveal profiles and an index of socio-health vulnerabilities at the household and locality levels respectively has been created. Weekly diarrhea cases were also collected from three health centers. Gastroenteritis, dysentery, and intestinal parasitosis are predominant and mainly affect children under 5 years old. Diagnosed morbidity reveals more cases in January-March and during the rainy season. Incidence rates show spatial heterogeneity depending on the locality. The MCA revealed four vulnerability profiles whose spatialization echoes the diagnosed morbidity reinforcing the interest in developing an index at the locality level. The latter revealed that the least vulnerable sectors are affected by human capital and the most vulnerable by a combination of the four capitals dominated by physical capital. Actions are proposed to reduce these vulnerabilities at the locality level.
The FR-Alert platform enables the dissemination of alert notifications that appear on the mobile phone screens of individuals located within a geographical area designated by the authorities. Most previous studies have focused on technical aspects, message content or reactions reported during exercises, rather than on the perceptions of individuals in real-life alert situations. Five alert notifications were sent during the floods that occurred in November 2023 and January 2024 in the Aa catchment (Pas-de-Calais, France). This article summarises the feedback gathered a few months later. The questionnaire administered to the population (n = 293) shows that contextual variables influence both the perception of the alerts received and the overall perception of the system. Individuals already being flooded when the first alert was received had a negative impact on the perception of the alerts. Individuals living upstream of the hydrological network, which was already impacted at the time of the first alert, have a more negative perception of the FR-Alert system, highlighting a spatiotemporal effect. The clarity of the messages has a positive effect on the understanding of the alerts, which reinforces the importance of the drafting phase prior to the alert being triggered. Prior knowledge of the system does not influence the perception of alerts or the system itself. The article discusses the importance of the spatiotemporal properties of alerts and the need to increase feedback, taking into account the individual and territorial contexts specific to each crisis.
In the context of an energy and ecological transition, and in response to growing concerns over urban congestion and environmental health, large metropolitan areas are implementing policies to promote sustainable mobility, particularly active modes for everyday travel. While light individual modes (bicycles, e-bikes, scooters, and similar devices) are increasingly visible in dense urban spaces, the question remains: do current infrastructures adequately meet the mobility needs of the population across the entire metropolitan area, ensuring both comfort and safety? This research introduces the concept of territorial ergonomics and develops a GIS-based model to analyze the conditions of access to everyday resources from residential locations. The study focuses on the Strasbourg metropolitan area and relies on two complementary methods: (1) constructing a composite ergonomics index combining eight indicators related to resource distribution, cycling infrastructure, urban environmental quality, and safety; and (2) creating a typology of ergonomics indicators to characterize local combinations of criteria. The results highlight significant spatial disparities, revealing the major role of urban structure in shaping the conditions for cycling mobility. These findings, when cross-referenced with population characteristics, underline the need for additional indicators to better understand actual mobility practices.
