Contenu du sommaire : Jeune recherche alpine

The aim of this contribution is to correlate the demographic dynamics that can be observed in the Alps area, with those of management, transmission and valorisation of the local historical memory; in particular, this work focuses on the Piedmont town of Macugnaga, where an ethnographic research was conducted. Moving from the main theoretical, demographic and geographic proposals that concern the phenomena of repopulation of the alpine area, and from anthropological reflections on the subject of memory, there arose the need for a dialogue between the two perspectives and to adopt a multi-level method that would integrate the macro approach of demographic reconstructions with the “ground level” approach of ethnography. The increasing number of new inhabitants in the Alps raises the question of who could legitimately call themselves “mountain dwellers” and how these dynamics of belonging manifest themselves. One of the most significant ways in which belonging to the community is expressed, is through the participation in the management and transmission of the local historical memory. It will be shown how in this case study, the history of the community, characterised by early immigration movements, gave rise to the coexistence of different transmissible memories that concern different aspects of the local history. In addition, the current composition of the population is characterised by the simultaneous presence of people who express different and varied ways of living in the mountains.

In the context of a mature winter sports market and ageing accommodation facilities, most contemporary French ski resorts are having to deal with a gradual decline in visitor numbers. Faced with the failure of numerous attempts to introduce rehabilitation measures, new property developments appear the only way to maintain a viable tourism economy in these mountain areas. The purpose of this paper is to gain insights into the real estate development process in ski resorts. Based on the example of the Tarentaise Valley, the paper focuses on the seemingly headlong rush of many resorts into real estate construction. More generally, it analyzes the characteristics of an economic model that is structurally dependent on permanent urban development to ensure its viability.

While the supply of water to dry or arid mountain regions has long been a major challenge, the on-going processes of climatic and socio-economic change currently affecting the hydrosystems of the Alps raise the spectre of renewed pressure on water resources and possible local shortages. In such a context, questions relating to fair distribution of water are all the more sensitive given the tendency to neglect the social dimension of sustainability. The present paper makes both a conceptual and empirical contribution to this debate by analysing a system of distribution that has a long experience of water scarcity management: the community governance models traditionally linked to the irrigation channels, or bisses, typical of the Swiss Alpine canton of Valais. More specifically, we evaluate these models in terms of accessibility and equity, characteristics that we use to operationalize the notion of ‘fair distribution'. We examine these dimensions in three case studies with a view to highlighting the limitations of the aforementioned models. Indeed, despite their cooperative and endogenous nature, they tend to not only exclude certain members of the population, but also to reproduce rather than reduce social inequalities within the community. In general, these results challenge the rosy picture generally found in the literature relating to these community governance models.

Climate change will affect hydrological cycle and water resources in the Alps. Here we sketched potential future (2045-2054) hydrological cycle under prospective climate change scenarios within an Alpine river of Italy: Serio (ca. 300 km2). Therein, hydrology is highly dependent upon snow cover cycle, very likely to be affected by climate changes. We set up and validated a hydrological model able to mimic water resources regime of the river. We then use downscaled future temperature and precipitation from two general circulation models GCMs to feed the hydrological model and obtain projected hydrological regimes, at flow sections at different altitudes within the catchment. The scenarios and storylines from the adopted GCMs differ from one another with respect to projected precipitation and temperature amount, but agree upon decrease of the former and increase of the latter. All hydrological scenarios agree upon prospective shrinkage of seasonal snow cover due to increased temperature, and upon prospective increase of Fall and Winter stream flows as due to increased liquid precipitation. Lower discharges are projected during Spring and Summer, in view of decreased rainfall and snow cover at thaw, and the CCSM3 model provides shifting of thaw season to one month earlier. Higher catchments are more impacted because Winter flows increase more proportionally.

Using our tools of architect, of architectural project, we suggest to study the cross-border area of Geneva region in the context of the construction of a new alpine region.The inhabitant's daily way of life today questions the administrative borders and the limits of the metropolis of Geneva. This territory is particularly marked by systems of relations at various scales, from the international one, to that of the “small town” and the rural space. The process of architectural design requires a specific understanding of territorial issues, questioning simultaneously the densification of the urban poles and the sustainability of the “urban countryside” in the Geneva region.In particular, we study the hypothesis of a “countryside project” as a basis for the development of Geneva region, referring to nearby locations of the city as “the next villages”. The conceptual hypothesis of a transversal axis formed by “the next villages” becomes the basis for strategies and initiatives in various sectors, rural housing, production, and mobility.It will is experimented more exactly on the municipality of Viry through various interventions to build a new relationship between city and countryside.We plan to develop an position that distinguishes territorial differentiation, distinction between the town and the countryside, developing the idea of the inevitable influence of urban growth and the whole urbanization question of the Alpine region.