Peri-urban agriculture and climate: thinking about resilient development pathways

Despite the efforts made to mitigate flood impacts, the costs to society of this natural hazard remain enormous and difficult to control in the context of the development of urban assets in flood plains. As part of the CAFRUA project, which is being carried out from 2022 to 2024 by a multi-disciplinary research consortium, we tackled this issue by asking whether flood management policies and local urban food supply policies could find synergies through the maintenance or development of agriculture in the areas around metropolises (peri-urban areas). We sought to identify the specific determinants of location in peri-urban and flood-prone areas in order to highlight the constraints and opportunities for maintaining farms in these areas through a combination of approaches on a case study around the Metropolis of Montpellier (France). Through the project, we also made contact with various researchers in other countries, whom we brought together at an international seminar (May 2024) to discuss the subject and identify common determinants. In this paper, we propose to analyse whether a common pattern in terms of development pathway emerges in the different case studies and to analyse and discuss its determinants. We conclude by suggesting future avenues for research and recommendations in terms of governance and public policies.