Coastal Urbanization and Land Planning in Southern France

Abstract

International audience ; Urban sprawl is one of the main pressures affecting coastal areas in the Mediterranean. To assist spatial planning and coastal management policies, the study of urbanization and the characterization of the evolution of built-up areas along the coast are essential prerequisites. In this perspective, the production of land use data sets at a large-scale is necessary. They allow spatio-temporal analysis and, simultaneously, may be used to assess the efficiency of city planning and land planning documents. In France, where the political concern for the protection of the coasts and the limitation of urbanized areas started in the seventies, many tools and planning documents exist and can be put into force at several levels of territorial administration. However, urban sprawl is still a critical issue. It is therefore necessary to analyze how far national policies as well as local spatial planning practices are adapted. Taking as case studies two Mediterranean coastal zones of France (the Côte bleue, close to Marseilles, and the area of the Biguglia Lagoon, next to Bastia in Corsica), this article aims at analyzing jointly the evolution of urban areas along with the process of land planning.