Remedial urban planning: an amplifying factor of natural risks in urban environments. The case of the Grand Nador Agglomeration, Morocco

Hassan El-Amrani

elamrani.hassan@enafes.ma 0000-0003-4865-3265

Ecole Nationale d’Architecture de Fès. ENA de Fès: Route sidi Hrazem parc Fès shore. 30000 Fès, Maroc.

Tribak Abdellatif

abdellatif.tribak@usmba.ac.ma 0000-0002-1564-5886

University Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdellah-Fez. FLSH-Sais Fès: BP 59 Route Immouzer. 30000 Fès, Maroc.

Keywords

Urban planning

Natural hazards

Vulnerability

Grand Nador territory

RESEARCH TOPIC

The Grand Nador, agglomeration, situated in the north east of Morocco, is characterized by a deep territorial dynamic linked to the economic, social and environmental changes that this region has undergone during the last decades. The extent of this dynamic reflects the multiple difficulties from which urbanization suffers. Urban management as it is currently done at this territorial level conceals the vulnerability of many districts. So, to respond to several social, political and practical pressures, the authorities in charge of agglomeration planning, continue to favor an approach of Remedial urban planning which is explained by a specific curative vision in order to face the territorial imbalances arising from derailed urbanization. Indeed, without worrying about the presence of natural risks, often hidden in a punctual and curative territorial management, this territory suffers more and more from an increased vulnerability.

RESEARCH OBJECTIVES

This paper aims at a set of objectives to show the relationship between remedial urbanism and the proliferation of natural risks. Thus, we would like also to show that the permanent urbanization crisis explains the recourse to the remedial mechanism of this intrinsically fragile territory.

Also, this article attempts to show that the punctual intervention in some neighborhoods concentrates only on the main site, on the scale of a few hectares. This had a strong impact on general vulnerability, so that new areas of dysfunction have been erected upstream and downstream of the urban site, following this urban planning operation, which was not concerned with the overall consequences of territorial management.

Finally, the article tries to approach the share of the social dimension in the proliferation of natural risks and curative town planning in Nador. Thus, we tried to reveal the logics of urbanization of the zone since the establishment of the first urban core and to analyze the culture of the risk at the population and the territorial actors. likewise, we have attempted to underline the impact of local risk management at the scale of the agglomeration.

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

To understand the relationship between curative urban planning and the acceleration of natural hazards, a holistic approach was deployed by adopting several approaches:

1. Analysis of historical documentation relating to available town planning documents and recovery plans to detect the notion of natural risk in urban planning tools.
2. The development of an inventory of natural risks that are the subject of research and administrative missions. Our objective was to get an idea of the territorial practices of the state actor in the field of risks.
3. The development of work guides (pre-established semi-directional questions) intended for technical, administrative and municipal services.
4. The development of a questionnaire consisting of 26 questions intended for a sample of 200 people representative of 10,000 inhabitants of the neighborhoods concerned
5. Field inspection campaigns have been carried out, with the aim of comparing the results obtained with the reality on the ground.

MAIN RESULTS

1. Conjunctural town planning still remains an approach that prevails in Nador. This makes the urbanization of this territory a rather difficult exercise with planning mechanisms that are not predefined. So, the services in charge of urban planning operate under several political, social economic, and even customary, pressures. Reason for which the crisis of the urbanization becomes more and more heavy.
2. The policy of correctional urban planning is both the cause of a fragmented and convoluted urban fabric where all forms of inconvenient housing are identified. It is also considered as an amplifying factor of natural risks, and creation of new areas of fragility.
3. The brutal, derisory and derailed urbanization of the Grand Nador remarkable site, is the fruit of several short-term logics, aimed at responding to immediate circumstances and conjectures, from the colonial period in 1909 until today. Indeed, the urban framework still lacks a framework for holistic reflection, where the fabric of the city is still carried out by the punctual, the curative and the short-termist.
4. Urban extension towards high-risk areas is in no way a territorial determinism. Several technical, legal and urban planning parameters explain the distribution of risks between the districts on the scale of the territory of Grand Nador. First of all, a limited knowledge of natural risks explained by technical weaknesses during the development of urban planning tools as well as the lack of databases on past experiences. Second, reluctant attitudes of local people, which manifest themselves in the lack of attention paid to the choice of location.

CONCLUSION

The phenomenon of urbanization is developing at an exacerbated pace in the Nador region, particularly in restructuring areas which are generally attractive to a disadvantaged social category. This phenomenon remains similar to other agglomerations of Morocco.

This fact allows us to ask questions about the urban planning approaches in this territory, on their effects, their impacts and their limits. After a long experience intended to overcome this derailed urbanization, passing from one intervention to another and from one city policy to another, it seems today that this territory has not yet overcome this logic remedial urban planning.

On a small scale, these catch-up operations can appear with a positive effect, however their evaluation must be done on a fairly global scale and over the long term. At a time when several urban restructuring operations are emerging, vulnerability to natural hazards is increasing. A situation that can be explained by several territorial mechanisms specific to this study area, but which can be similar to other Mediterranean territories.