From Risk to Legislative Innovation: The Trajectory of Marine Submersion Through the French Media

ABSTRACT

Storm Xynthia (2010) brought to the fore marine submersion as a great concern to French authorities and communities. This storm illustrates how a single major event can have long-lasting effects on climate risk management. To discern this effect, we conduct two studies analyzing the emergence and evolution of concerns related to marine submersion in French national and regional newspapers prior to and after the storm (2005–2018). In Study 1, we examine trends in issue coverage and how “marine submersion” was appropriated by French media discourse over the selected period, identifying and segmenting specific topical sequences. In Study 2, a computer-assisted content analysis of 260 articles highlights a dichotomy of themes before and after Storm Xynthia. Articles published prior to Xynthia (2005–2009) warned of marine submersion among the expected impacts of climate change. Those published just after Xynthia (2010–2013) present highly structured and technical descriptions of national risk management policies. In recent years (2014–2018), articles focus on local stakeholders’ challenge to national risk management policies, described as too far removed from local dynamics. Our studies reveal the emergence and amplification, via public debate in French newspaper media, of “marine submersion” as a hazard, and the objectification of the risk through Storm Xynthia.

KEYWORDS:

• Coastal flooding
• emerging risk
• media representations
• legal innovation
• climate change

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 In French: “submersion marine”; “submersion” ET “mer”; “submersion” ET “marine”; “submersion” ET “risque”.

2 In France, “marine submersion” describes the same phenomenon as “coastal floods”. This press analysis solely covers the articles using the institutionally chosen term “marine submersion” and cannot account for all the articles speaking broadly of coastal flooding phenomena.

3 “Although we have chosen to perform a computer-assisted analysis with the Iramuteq software (see below the Data analysis section), considering the large number of press articles (n = 3,389) identified in Study 1, sampling – a method to reduce – was necessary. Indeed, we did not limit the analysis to the raw results of the software but coupled it with a thematic content analysis of the corpus as recommended by Kalampalikis (2003). Furthermore, this method requires preparation coupled with an in-depth analysis of the texts (i.e. coding of each article and associated metadata, gathering of words or expressions using a hyphen such as ‘marine_submersion’).”

4 Terms in italics are those significantly associated with each class.

5 Centre d'étude maritime et fluviale de l'Équipement (Centre for Maritime and River Studies)

6 Grenelle of the Sea.

7 The AZF factory in Toulouse was a chemical plant (AZote Fertilizers) that exploded on September 21, 2001, causing significant damage, injury and loss of life.

8 The number "29" here refers to the number of deaths in the department of Vendée and not in the whole of France.

9 Association Pour Le Développement Économique Et La Promotion Touristique.

10 Association Monastérienne de Protection face aux Risques d’Inondations.

Additional information

Funding

This work received funding from the European Union – FEDER programme (DIGUE 2020 project) and from Labex OT-Med (n° ANR-11-LABX-0061).