Les sols créateurs de paysages à l’extrémité aval de l’île Saint-Denis

Abstract

This study examines the relationship between land use and the landscape on the Lil'Ô site managed by the Halage association on the island of Saint-Denis. The transformation of the Lil'Ô landscape and adjacent land by land use since the 20th century is studied using in situ observations, interviews, archives and the integration of aerial images in a geographic information system (GIS). A temporal landscape in motion is described in the course of a century following an inventory of current land use in the presence of pollution. As the landscape has changed soils from past activities have sedimented. These polluted soils are those of a site in a neglected outlying flood plain. Following decades during which industrial activities left the area, the relationship to nature and soil evolved from recreational use to ecological conservation and finally to ecological reconciliation. This site is now developed according to practices that break with those of the past and include an awareness of the need to consider the soil as a living organism.

Keywords

• landscape
• soil
• community garden
• pollution
• urbanism