Contenu du sommaire

Summary. — Despite the construction of retaining walls designed to protect the people living alongside the river Isère from rising waters, the town of Grenoble is still threatened by floods. Although for more than a century the river Isère has not known big floods (about 1 500 to 2 000 ms/s), such a possibility of flooding should not be dismissed. A calculation of the frequency of such floods-would allow that the maximum flow of 1 500 m'/s constitutes a centenary flood; now, on last September 23, the Isère rolled 1 000 m'/s at Grenoble, and overflowed, as foreseen, at certain weak points in the wall embankment. Therfore, il would seem vital to insure an efficient protection of that town.

Summary. — The High Maurienne or High valley of the Arc, has always been distinguished by the great physical and human originality inside the intra-alpine zone of which it is a part In a community which is easy evolved socially and economically, as a result of its position on the highway as old as it is important, a large population lives in complete self-sufficiency thabks to a well-regulated pastoral and arable system and to the existence of a very old temporary emigration. But the two World Wars in particular and the upheavals of the economy brought about the complete decline of this region which neither industry nor winter sports has yet been able to revive. Is this decline beyond remedy ? Do solutions exist to give back life to a high valley with both grandiose and intact landscapes ? On the contrary, by putting forward a capacity for earing profit which has been misunderstood, must these villages and this population be abandoned — their only fault being that they are too few ? This survey endeavours to give a solution to these problems common to all rural high mountain regions.