Croiser les sources environnementales, historiques et sociologiques pour reconstituer les catastrophes naturelles. Le cas de la débâcle du Giétro du 16 juin 1818
On 16 June 1818, the break-up of a glacial lake dammed by the Giétro Glacier caused a devastating wave in the Bagnes valley, in the canton of Valais (Switzerland), killing 34 people and causing extensive material damage to infrastructure (bridges, roads), housing and agricultural and hydraulic struc...
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Physio-Géo
2019-12-01
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| Series: | Physio-Géo |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/physio-geo/9504 |
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| Summary: | On 16 June 1818, the break-up of a glacial lake dammed by the Giétro Glacier caused a devastating wave in the Bagnes valley, in the canton of Valais (Switzerland), killing 34 people and causing extensive material damage to infrastructure (bridges, roads), housing and agricultural and hydraulic structures, as well as crops and grasslands. The cartography of the flood's geographical extent was carried out by crossing different environmental, historical and sociological sources: 1/ a list of damages to private land and buildings was compiled on the basis of archives recording the damages reported by the victims; 2/ this database was combined with a regional genealogical database in order to reconstruct the losses on the scale of certain individuals; 3/ it was also cross-referenced with a toponymic database in order to locate damages; 4/ a systematic survey of the geomorphological traces of the wave (erosion edges, block spreading) was established in the field and using a Digital Terrain Model (DTM); 5/ finally, interviews were conducted in a particularly affected village in order to capture the oral memory of the event. This article discusses the value of such a multidisciplinary intersection of data by presenting the characteristics of the different sources, the contributions to the reconstruction of the geographical extent of the flood and the damages at two different scales, as well as the difficulties (gaps, uncertainties) relating to these sources. This work provides an opportunity to discuss the issues related to the reconstruction of ancient natural disasters from different environmental, historical and sociological sources. |
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| ISSN: | 1958-573X |