Vivre avec ou par le risque à l’île de Sein ?

Abstract

This article stresses on relationships between hazard’s social representations and iconographies. As an illustration, Sein Island (located near by the Brittany coast, in Finistère). This island is considered as a symbol of natural hazard territory: indeed this low island has been confronted for decades to face significant flood hazard that is nowadays strengthened by the consequences of global warming and a lack of infrastructures. Pictures of flood hazards, and more particularly pictures of storms, are used in order to spread around the fear of natural disasters. This fear justifies the management policies implemented on the island. However islanders criticize pictures which are too spectacular and too distorted. Those gaps between hazard’s representations and iconographies are the main subjects of this article.

Keywords

• flood hazard
• representation
• resource
• Sein island
• storm