Summary: | In order to avoid the undesirable effects of urbanisation, development policies and specific regulatory measures were gradually introduced on the French coast from the 1970s onwards, culminating in the adoption of the Coastal Law in 1986. The implementation of these regulations varies according to the different forms of urbanization, distinguished through morphological, qualitative, and quantitative criteria. In the Coastal Law, these criteria are voluntarily defined in an imprecise manner, in order to allow their appreciation according to local specificities and regional planning. It therefore seems relevant to mobilise certain simple geomatic methods to model the criteria for delimiting and characterising the built-up areas of the coastline, as well as "negotiation zones" within which different development options could be considered. After a presentation of the methods for delineating built-up areas and the concepts they cover, we discuss the principles of common GIS algorithms. A case study on the Crozon Peninsula allows us to discuss the interest and limits of these methods, before concluding on their relevance.
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