Périodiser les phases de régime et de crise des usages de l'eau. L'apport d'une approche en termes de modes d'usage de l'eau

This paper presents the analytical contribution of the "water use mode" as an observation domain, in the context of a new syncretic institutionalist approach recently developed by Billaudot, to understand the evolution of water use. In an amended version of the concept originally proposed by Arrus (2000), the water use mode shapes our empirical corpus based on qualitative fieldworks coupled with a historiographical analysis of the evolution of water use in the agricultural sector in Almeria between the late nineteenth century and today. On the one hand, the water use mode allows us to describe the evolution of uses in four periods: the first three correspond to the phases of genesis, regime and crisis of a particular water use mode, while the fourth one reflects the emergence of a new mode to address the limitations of the previous one. On the other hand, we mobilize the theoretical approach to characterize the first mode stamped as "hydraulicist" and to understand the determinants of its crisis (described in the framework of a new typology of crisis). Finally, we show how the new mode attempts to address the limitations of the previous mode. Nevertheless, it actually does not imply a paradigm shift but corresponds to a "crisis regime".