The seminar “Economic expertise and environmental actions” welcomes

Léda Dimitriadi and Sophie Tabouret

Water management

How to manage water in a changing climate? This session, organised as part of the FORET project funded by the CNRS – MITI, will look into water management insofar as it connects land planning and infrastructure development on the one hand, and hydrogeology and climatology on the other hand. 

The triple crisis of environment, climate and energy emphasizes the need to integrate water management as one of the key issues in architecture, urbanism and land use planning. In this context, the designer – architect, urban planner – must adopt a transdisciplinary approach that, depending on the scale of the intervention, combines the production of buildings or the development of space with hydraulic engineering, geography, hydrogeology, climatology and landscape studies. It must engage in and anticipate a multi-scalar approach, involving interaction with specialists from these other disciplines. This work of architecture and spatial planning is based on what already exists, both natural and man-made, on the potential of infrastructures and hydraulic heritage. It involves a detailed analysis of the characteristics of the regions studied, which are subject to seasonal floods or droughts, as the case may be, but is also confronted with the equally complex economic and political issues of water management, which also requires collaboration with local actors. Based on real-life examples, as well as on the experience of project-based teaching in schools of architecture that mobilize interdisciplinary approaches, we will highlight some of the issues that link architecture and planning to the question of water and its management, both tangible and intangible.

Sophie Tabouret (EHESS, CIRED)
Rethinking water governance – infrastructures and the “cost” of water

The development of water storage infrastructures for agricultural irrigation, known as “retenues de substitution” [substitute water reservoirs], in the Poitevin marshland has sparked controversy. Criticism has focused not only on the problem of water privatization, but also on the downside of agricultural industrialization. I approach these water infrastructures as relational objects (Leigh Star 2018), focusing on their materiality. Part of their materiality, however, can be observed in their costs, the costs of building, securing, and maintaining them. These costs are reflected in the price of water. Water from reservoirs is “secured”, but it is more expensive. And this affects agriculture, farmers, marketing channels and local areas.

Léda Dimitriadi, architect-engineer, a graduate of the School of Architecture of the National Polytechnic University of Athens, is an HDR professor at the Ecole nationale supérieure d’architecture Paris-Val de Seine and a researcher in the ACS team of UMR AUSSER. At ENSA Paris-Malaquais, she has taught sciences and techniques for architecture and the theories and practices of architectural and urban design. From 2023 to 2024, she was President of the Research Commission and Vice-President of the Scientific and Pedagogical Council of ENSA Paris-Malaquais.

Sophie Tabouret is a post-doctoral researcher at CIRED and EHESS on the issue of water in the Poitevin marshes, following an engineering degree in agronomy and a thesis in STS on the creation of new grape varieties for viticulture.

Infos et inscription

Date: Friday, December 13, 2024, 11am-1pm

Venue: École des Mines, 60 boulevard Saint Michel, 75006 Paris. Room Chevalier

The session will also be streamed by videoconference. The link will be sent upon registration just before the seminar.

The seminar is open to all. Please register here to participate in this session.

Contact: Béatrice Cointe, Kewan Mertens or Alexandre Violle

Find out more about the program

Photo credit: Net Circlion (2017 ). « Marais Poitevin » [Poitevin marshland]• CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Photo credit: la Ezwa (2013). « Une ombre d’avance » [A shadow ahead]. Belgique, Bruxelles. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0