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ABSTRACT. Flood mitigation is a strategy that is growing in importance across Europe. This growth corresponds with an increasing emphasis on the need to learn to live with floods and make space for water. Flood mitigation measures aim at reducing the likelihood and magnitude of flooding and complement flood defenses. They are being put in place through the implementation of actions that accommodate (rather than resist) water, such as natural flood management or adapted housing. The strategy has gained momentum over the past 20 years in an effort to improve the sustainability of flood risk management (FRM) and facilitate the diversification of FRM in the pursuit of societal resilience to flooding. Simultaneously, it is increasingly argued that adaptive forms of governance are best placed to address the uncertainty and complexity associated with social-ecological systems responding to environmental challenges, such as flooding. However, there have been few attempts to examine the extent to which current flood risk governance, and flood mitigation specifically, reflect these aspired forms of adaptive governance. Drawing from EU research into flood risk governance, conducted within the STAR-FLOOD project, we examine the governance of flood mitigation in six European countries: Belgium, England, France, the Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden. Using in-depth policy and legal analysis, as well as interviews with key actors, the governance and implementation of flood mitigation in these countries is evaluated from the normative viewpoint of whether, and to what extent, it can be characterized as adaptive governance. We identify five criteria of adaptive governance based on a comprehensive literature review and apply these to each country to determine the "distance" between current governance arrangements and adaptive governance. In conclusion, the flood mitigation strategy provides various opportunities for actors to further pursue forms of adaptive governance. The extent to which the mitigation strategy is capable of doing so varies across countries, however, and its role in stimulating adaptive governance was found to be strongest in Belgium and England.

When analysing flood risk governance in France since the beginning of the 1980s, central government appears as a predominant actor. However, to understand contemporary French flood risk governance (FRG), it is also important to highlight how this domination has progressively been undermined since 1982. First, a decentralisation movement has been initiated whose main characteristics are an increasing involvement of local governments and a difficulty for national authorities to maintain their predominant role. The second main change is a diversification in flood risk strategies going together with a diversification in the definition of the flood risk issue. FRG is not a sole matter of protection through defence, preparation, and recovery strategies anymore. Both prevention and mitigation strategies have progressively gained in legitimacy. It is in the latter that local governments and stakeholders have increasingly got involved and have taken up responsibilities and initiatives. The paper focuses on the explanatory factors behind both stability and change, and especially on the ongoing tension, between path dependency factors (i.e. state power and role) and organisational capability of local actors.

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Référence électroniqueMathieu Bonnefond et Marie Fournier, « Maîtrise foncière dans les espaces ruraux. Un défi pour les projets de renaturation des cours d'eau », Économie rurale [En ligne], 334 | mars-avril 2013, mis en ligne le 15 mars 2015, consulté le 02 mai 2019.Dans cet article, les auteurs ont cherché à interroger les conditions de la mise en oeuvre de l'action publique au sein des espaces ruraux et son impact sur les droits de propriété et sur les usages. L'étude des projets de restauration/renaturation menés dans le cadre du Contrat de rivière de la Veyle (Ain) fait ainsi apparaître que la maîtrise foncière est centrale et fait intégralement partie des stratégies développées par les acteurs publics en charge de la conduite de ces projets. MOTS-CLÉS : action publique environnementale, espace rural, contrat de rivière, maîtrise foncière Land tenure: a challenge for river renaturation projects in rural areasIn this article we aim at analyzing conditions of implementation of environmental public policy in rural areas and its impact on property rights and land uses. The study of renaturation projects on the Veyle river (France) reveals that land tenure is a central issue for the implementation of such projects and becomes a real part of the strategies developed by the public actors. (JEL: R5).

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