Developing an environmental management information system for the sustainable development of the ski resort of Les Arcs (French Alps)

The problem of sustainability is peculiarly critical for the ski resorts because there are tourist trade enterprises which build and operate infrastructures settled in mountainous areas valuable for their biological diversity, their part in the main cycles of vital resources as water and the soil stability. As the first step of the process of the sustainable management consists on the production of specific environmental knowledge dedicated to produce a situation diagnosis, remote sensing information and Geographical information systems become valuable tools for helping the managers aware of the sustainability necessity. In a second step, those systems can give simulations to explore the future and thus increase the mediation process between the socio-economical actors at the local scale. / Cette contribution écrite à la conférence internationale de l'Information Resources Management Association (IRMA) qui s'est tenue en 2000 à Anchorage est une réflexion sur la façon dont on peut traduire en terme d'aménagement les idées conceptuelles relatives la gestion durable dans le cas des stations de ski. Dans la mesure où cette problématique débouche sur la collecte et le maniement d'une grande masse d'informations spatialisées, les outils modernes de traitement de ce type d'information (SIG ) constituent une aide appréciable pour les gestionnaires.