Mountain land restoration - Alpes-de-Haute-Provence

The map provides access to the geolocated pictures of this collection, with a navigation by municipality. For each municipality, you will find all the photographs taken in that particular area.

Access to the digitized documents

It is a selection of photographs taken in the department that is presented here. The Archives Nationales hold "merely" 1,805 photographs from a much larger collection held by the departmental archives of the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence (formerly the Basses-Alpes department).

The collection is organised by forest conservation area around a river, a stream or main torrent, defined by the forest services, and then by series (equivalent to a municipality, a forest or a secondary branch of the main torrent) in alphabetical order within an area.

The title of the photograph generally contains a full description of the view.

On the same subject

  • Of avalanches and people: tips for adapting your living environment
    Avalanche in the Barral valley; photo by Plagnat; 30 January 1938.
    Natural Risks

    Of avalanches and people: tips for adapting your living environment

    In the high mountains, the snow can last for months and the risk of avalanches is permanent. Despite this, mountain dwellers have always adapted to this environment. Grouped together in communities and leading a self-sufficient life, they have used their ingenuity to take advantage of the constraints and subtleties of the terrain by relying on existing natural protections.

  • The Riou-Bourdoux: how to tame this terrible torrent?
    Caption: the piles for riser no. 1 are installed using a pile driver; the workers lift the drop hammer which, as it falls, drives the piles into the ground
    Natural Risks

    The Riou-Bourdoux: how to tame this terrible torrent?

    In the 19th century, the Riou-Bourdoux, the torrent that caused considerable damage in the lower Alps, was the subject of one of the most colossal torrential correction projects carried out in France by the Water and Forest Department.