3 Landscape Emerging: A Developing Object of Study
29
technologies and new instruments gradually enabled geographers of the sea who,
apart from the odd researcher, did not directly observe the sea beds, to improve their
scales of interpretation (Augris and Gourmelon 2002). Data was interpreted and
transposed onto a vertical plane in order to reproduce a continuum in one or three
dimensions, providing a general view of the underwater topography and a detailed
analysis of coastal dynamics in the form of locatable abiotic units.
Nonetheless, the phrase “underwater landscape” was still used little in coastal
geography and French geomorphology. Either the underwater landscape was considered “banal” (Pinot 1998), or it “greatly [. . . ] bears the stamp of man” (Pinot
2002). This second conception does not in any way reflect a territorialising study of
the geographic object. It can be explained by the scalar level taken into account, by
the cartographic projection of the data obtained and by a maximalist assessment of
the impact of human activities on the deep sea. As fundamental as it may be, this
physical geography has therefore recently evolved to adjust these three parameters
to a scientific approach which, in terms of cognitive and interpretive processes in
coastal zone management, was overly restrictive. Interdisciplinarity and new tools
such as Geographic Information Systems used by geographers have also fostered this
move towards a global, dynamic conception of the littoral for geography (Bartlett
and Carter 1988; Wedding et al. 2011). LIDAR tools used to map the coastal strip
encompassing both land and underwater dimensions respond for example to this
concern. But underwater landscape is no longer exclusively a matter for geography;
it is part of particularly fundamental and essential cross-disciplinary reflection.
3.3 Technical Constraints and Conceptual Stages: A Slow
Process of Recognition by the Naturalist and Scientific
World
There are reasons why the French scientific community lacked interest and a clear
vision of the underwater landscape on a semantic, conceptual and methodological
level (Palmisani 2002). Broadly speaking, from the seventeenth century, considerable
work was done to develop inventories and taxonomic classifications. Prior studies had
to be deciphered and confirmed, as samples were often taken at random without any
real apprehension of the environment and with sometimes hazardous extrapolations
(Déléage 1992). There was also a move away from eloquent vernacular terminology to scientifically classify more or less successfully distinguished elements which
triggered recurring fantasies in the collective imagination (Geistdoerfer 1995). With
the advent of diving apparatus, and the development of diving and in situ research,
scientists experienced a minor revolution: this tool helped them better conceive the
reality and complexity of the underwater world (Doukan 1954; Fournier 2004), and
gradually begin to see what could be an underwater landscape. In fact, in one of the
first approaches, researchers rediscovered the concept of zonation and applied it to
the vertical organisation of seaweed and fish (Rougerie 1993).
29
technologies and new instruments gradually enabled geographers of the sea who,
apart from the odd researcher, did not directly observe the sea beds, to improve their
scales of interpretation (Augris and Gourmelon 2002). Data was interpreted and
transposed onto a vertical plane in order to reproduce a continuum in one or three
dimensions, providing a general view of the underwater topography and a detailed
analysis of coastal dynamics in the form of locatable abiotic units.
Nonetheless, the phrase “underwater landscape” was still used little in coastal
geography and French geomorphology. Either the underwater landscape was considered “banal” (Pinot 1998), or it “greatly [. . . ] bears the stamp of man” (Pinot
2002). This second conception does not in any way reflect a territorialising study of
the geographic object. It can be explained by the scalar level taken into account, by
the cartographic projection of the data obtained and by a maximalist assessment of
the impact of human activities on the deep sea. As fundamental as it may be, this
physical geography has therefore recently evolved to adjust these three parameters
to a scientific approach which, in terms of cognitive and interpretive processes in
coastal zone management, was overly restrictive. Interdisciplinarity and new tools
such as Geographic Information Systems used by geographers have also fostered this
move towards a global, dynamic conception of the littoral for geography (Bartlett
and Carter 1988; Wedding et al. 2011). LIDAR tools used to map the coastal strip
encompassing both land and underwater dimensions respond for example to this
concern. But underwater landscape is no longer exclusively a matter for geography;
it is part of particularly fundamental and essential cross-disciplinary reflection.
3.3 Technical Constraints and Conceptual Stages: A Slow
Process of Recognition by the Naturalist and Scientific
World
There are reasons why the French scientific community lacked interest and a clear
vision of the underwater landscape on a semantic, conceptual and methodological
level (Palmisani 2002). Broadly speaking, from the seventeenth century, considerable
work was done to develop inventories and taxonomic classifications. Prior studies had
to be deciphered and confirmed, as samples were often taken at random without any
real apprehension of the environment and with sometimes hazardous extrapolations
(Déléage 1992). There was also a move away from eloquent vernacular terminology to scientifically classify more or less successfully distinguished elements which
triggered recurring fantasies in the collective imagination (Geistdoerfer 1995). With
the advent of diving apparatus, and the development of diving and in situ research,
scientists experienced a minor revolution: this tool helped them better conceive the
reality and complexity of the underwater world (Doukan 1954; Fournier 2004), and
gradually begin to see what could be an underwater landscape. In fact, in one of the
first approaches, researchers rediscovered the concept of zonation and applied it to
the vertical organisation of seaweed and fish (Rougerie 1993).