La résilience d'un système spatial : l'exemple du Comtat

Abstract

The concept of resilience has been particularly developed in ecology. It implies the capacity of a system to integrate a perturbation in its functionning, without changing its qualitative structure. This thesis has aimed at an application of this notion and its conceptual framework, to a particular geographical problem setting that is the dynamics of the spatial systems. It is thus mainly a theoretical work, but that has been validated by an empirical study. The Comtat plaines, in the Rhône valley, form a system characterized by a spatial organization that is based on the structuring force of market gardening and orchards that are the main features of its agriculture. The Comtat system has proved to be a pertinent example and has permitted to show the fundamental interest of a resilience approach in geography. This work has consisted in a comparison of the system’s reactions during two series of perturbations. I have especially analyzed the system’s dynamics during the agricultural crisis during the second half of the 19th century and during the recent economical difficulties. The new European context has generated a difficult position for the Comtat system when compared to more competitive rivals, like fruit and vegetable producing regions in Spain or in the Netherlands. One of the goals of this work has been to stress the importance of the fundamental properties that characterize a system, on one hand, and of the decisions at lower levels of the organization, on the other hand, for the system’s dynamics when it is perturbed. A qualitative modelling of different dynamical phases of the system is done in order to assess what kind of system features can explain the maintenance of the system’s macro-geographical structure