28
O. Musard et al.
English) or if we apply a strict interpretation of the European Landscape Convention
(Convention Européenne du Paysage 2000) around the notion of “surroundings”. It
cannot truly be applied to the underwater world as this term has developed solely
on the socio-spatial organisation of mankind (Pinchemel and Pinchemel 1997). Furthermore, much controversy and numerous analyses (Roger 1995; Le Dû 1997) have
punctuated the history of the term “landscape” and landscape studies are underpinned
by many currents of thought and disciplines (Rougerie and Beroutchachvili 1991).
Yet, researchers in human and social geography have taken little interest in these
subjects, only briefly addressing the topic of underwater landscape or the materiality
of the underwater littoral fringe (Corlay 1998; Pinot 2002; Musard 2003; Musard
et al. 2007). For about a decade, active, cross-cutting research has focused on the
theoretical, technical, practical and epistemological foundations of the underwater
landscape, creating a corpus that is more than a mere transposition, adaptation or
application of terrestrial landscape to the sea world.
3.2 Terrestrial Fundamentals for Traditional Geography
of the Sea?
To geographers, the landscape is an area observed that cannot be fundamentally
reproduced in map form. Y. Lacoste (1977) reasserted this difference, insisting on
the fact that from the point of observation, some parts of a landscape are invisible or
concealed. This synoptic statement applies to underwater landscapes, but in French
physical geography of the sea, embodied by A. Guilcher, F. Verger, R. Paskoff,
J.-R. Vanney or J.-P. Pinot, this underwater space is above all defined through the
projection of its geological, topographic and morphological nature. The influence of
rocks on the relief, which was a regular question in the 1960s, led to the underwater
world being considered basically as an extension of the coast (Nonn 1972). Such
retranscription of the sea bed in a schematic cross-section or a vertical map allows
geographers to identify the relief and dynamics of the coastal system and render
visible and readable something that, in essence, escapes the human eye: “there is no
interpretation if there is no landscape to interpret and, beneath the sea, there is no
landscape provided by nature, only landscape reproduced by cartographic analysis”
(Pinot 2002).
Yet, this analysis clearly confirms the confusion between landscape and cartography and there are several reasons why. Physical geography of the sea dates back to the
second half of the nineteenth century (in 1855 M.-F. Maury published The physical
geography of the sea) but it only really developed in the 1950–1960s, at a time when
“geomorphological study conceals and devitalises the landscape” (Bertrand 1995).
Such geography of the sea studied the relief of the sea bed and its many shapes, the
“underwater landscape” having no veritable existence here. This unknown space
was only rendered on small or mean scale maps and was described using land terminology, for want of better (Bourcart 1949). Furthermore, as M. Roux (1998) recalled,
there was a tendency to represent the Ocean “as a perfectly isotropic area”. New
O. Musard et al.
English) or if we apply a strict interpretation of the European Landscape Convention
(Convention Européenne du Paysage 2000) around the notion of “surroundings”. It
cannot truly be applied to the underwater world as this term has developed solely
on the socio-spatial organisation of mankind (Pinchemel and Pinchemel 1997). Furthermore, much controversy and numerous analyses (Roger 1995; Le Dû 1997) have
punctuated the history of the term “landscape” and landscape studies are underpinned
by many currents of thought and disciplines (Rougerie and Beroutchachvili 1991).
Yet, researchers in human and social geography have taken little interest in these
subjects, only briefly addressing the topic of underwater landscape or the materiality
of the underwater littoral fringe (Corlay 1998; Pinot 2002; Musard 2003; Musard
et al. 2007). For about a decade, active, cross-cutting research has focused on the
theoretical, technical, practical and epistemological foundations of the underwater
landscape, creating a corpus that is more than a mere transposition, adaptation or
application of terrestrial landscape to the sea world.
3.2 Terrestrial Fundamentals for Traditional Geography
of the Sea?
To geographers, the landscape is an area observed that cannot be fundamentally
reproduced in map form. Y. Lacoste (1977) reasserted this difference, insisting on
the fact that from the point of observation, some parts of a landscape are invisible or
concealed. This synoptic statement applies to underwater landscapes, but in French
physical geography of the sea, embodied by A. Guilcher, F. Verger, R. Paskoff,
J.-R. Vanney or J.-P. Pinot, this underwater space is above all defined through the
projection of its geological, topographic and morphological nature. The influence of
rocks on the relief, which was a regular question in the 1960s, led to the underwater
world being considered basically as an extension of the coast (Nonn 1972). Such
retranscription of the sea bed in a schematic cross-section or a vertical map allows
geographers to identify the relief and dynamics of the coastal system and render
visible and readable something that, in essence, escapes the human eye: “there is no
interpretation if there is no landscape to interpret and, beneath the sea, there is no
landscape provided by nature, only landscape reproduced by cartographic analysis”
(Pinot 2002).
Yet, this analysis clearly confirms the confusion between landscape and cartography and there are several reasons why. Physical geography of the sea dates back to the
second half of the nineteenth century (in 1855 M.-F. Maury published The physical
geography of the sea) but it only really developed in the 1950–1960s, at a time when
“geomorphological study conceals and devitalises the landscape” (Bertrand 1995).
Such geography of the sea studied the relief of the sea bed and its many shapes, the
“underwater landscape” having no veritable existence here. This unknown space
was only rendered on small or mean scale maps and was described using land terminology, for want of better (Bourcart 1949). Furthermore, as M. Roux (1998) recalled,
there was a tendency to represent the Ocean “as a perfectly isotropic area”. New