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Sirens are symbols of traditional alert systems and they are still the centre of much attention in France. It can be explained by three main reasons: 1) since the Middle Ages the church bells were used to send alert signals to the population. However, they were progressively replaced by sirens, especially thanks to the electrification of communication networks and due to the failures of bells during flash floods that occurred along the River Garonne in 1930. After World War II, and particularly since 1954, they were progressively used more and more until the creation of the National Siren Network (NSN) after a political decree issued by General de Gaulle (in 1954); 2) the second reason is related to the political development of nuclear activities during the 1970s; 3) expected in 2022, a future alerting system (SAIP) will be composed 5531 sirens which will cover 2451 risk areas throughout France. The system will cost 83 millions euros, allocated in 2010, whereas the cost allocated for other solutions is lower (for example, only 300 000 euros for the smartphone application SAIP®). However, alerting by sirens raises many questions, especially due to the short range of sound-signals, the lack of understanding of sirens for individuals, the dependence on supply policy, the cost for maintaining the use of sirens, and the lack of any link between sirens and other warning mechanisms. In this paper therefore the Authors analyse the spatial distribution of the network of sirens in the RNA and in the future SAIP project (according to the data available), and discuss such political choices, debating progress under way and strategies that can be observed in two other countries (Belgium and United States), where choices have been radically changed now for several years.

In Chile, like in many other places, the grassroots struggles for spatial justice and the right to the city often extend beyond the heart of cities and especially rise up in suburbs or peri-urban areas. The Authors study the Til Til case, a “sacrifice zone” located in the periphery of Santiago (Metropolitan Region), where a large amount of polluting activities have been developed. For a decade, the residents have been mobilizing to show their opposition to this process. By studying the constituent terms and the genealogy of the 2015-2018 Strategic Plan for Til Til Development, set up by the Regional Governement to respond to the conflict situation, and the semi-directive interviews conducted with the main stakeholders of the project, they study how the local community progressively finds its voice by structuring its critical discourse about their right to live in a safe environment, and their to participate to in the decision-making processes concerning their territory's future. The paper first introduces the case of Til Til and the conflicts generated by the disputed installation of polluting infrastructures in that municipal area. It then analyses the Til Til Plan, its method and contested outputs, before highlighting how the implementation of this instrument, which served the public action's legitimation strategy, has proved to be inadequate for managing the socio-environmental conflict, yet rather contributed to reinforce the residents'resistance , which calls for a rethink as to the conditions that favour the emergence of the right to the city in the context of neoliberal Chile.

The social and solidarity economy-based enterprises or “social enterprises” are considered to be “anchored to their territory”. But what does it mean ? Are social enterprises organizations which aim to support and build local territory ? Or do they take advantage of that relationship to ensure their own future ? In order to clarify the question, the Authors consider it a good strategy for analysis to combine the Actor-Network Theory with the humanistic geography approach. In that way, a study of two cases of social enterprises localized in rural areas showed that Actor-Network Theory and Humanist Theory are not as idealistic as can be found in some research papers. Together, they help improve understanding of the strategic fundamentals and future situations of social enterprises in the face of a movement towards an international model of social entrepreneurship operating under “social impact” criteria. The former social enterprises are distinct from the latte in not wanting to adopt that model, because, they are locally anchored in support of an inclusive, long-term territorial project.

Despite the rarity of serious studies based on solid scientific methodologies to estimate the quantity of water lost from French ponds by evaporation, the French authorities consider these water bodies as the main cause of water loss and therefore the summer low water levels of the hydro-graphic networks. Certainly, pond evaporation records its highest rates in summer, but previous studies had neglected the amount of water that can be lost through plant evapo-transpiration that would replace the ponds if they were dried up. In this research the Authors adapt an approach based on possible over-evaporation that occurs in excess of the wetland evapotranspiration that existed or would exist in place of the ponds. Direct measurements of pond evaporation and the evapo-transpiration of plants occupying the bottom of an old broken-up pond were taken during the warm semester of 2018 in Limousin (France). The results of this research show that the wetland has lost 1.37 times the amount of water lost from the nearby pond. Comparison between calculations from mathematical formulae and measurements taken in situ shows that the Penman-Monteith method does not consider the vegetative stage of plants and that it is more suitable for estimating evaporation from free water bodies. Aldomany's formula gives close values with an average difference of 6.4 % of the measured evaporation. The mathematical methods used in this research can provide acceptable estimates of the actual evapo-transpiration of of wet wetland if the crop coefficient calculated in this study (1.37) has been taken into consideration.

Research on religion in urban settings emphasizes the spatial inscription of religious groups. Places of worship, through their visibility, highlight the social presence of religious communities at a spatial level. Nevertheless, some religious groups do not have places of worship available and they have to rent, on a regular basis, theatre halls or cinemas. A field survey among three Evangelical Churches in Montreal is an opportunity to argue that this renting system is a strategy and not only the outcome of external constraints. The main aim of this strategy is to reduce the “selective filters” which create a distance between communities and potential congregations. Drawing on recent literature in sociology of religion and current ethnographic fieldwork, the Author contends that beyond their specific situations, these Churches epitomize the new face of contemporary Christianity which, moving away from religious rite, put forward the notion of religious performance. So doing, it fits in with Quebec urban society.