subsidence Clay Shrinkage Subsidence

[Bob G]

I am interested to know of property owners in France who have cracking which they feel might be due to clay shrinkage subsidence, and how they go about dealing with it. I am a UK subsidence consultant, and here we have an industry dedicated to it, but I believe elsewhere in the world folk worry about it much less - and it is largely uninsured. I am aware of the Catastrophe Naturelle insurance system in France, but not how effective or popular it is.

It is of course very much on the increase with climate change and it seems to me that in France (as well as UK) the insurance industry is concerned about the rising costs.

Clay subsidence is however very avoidable in most scenarios, and I encourage prevention by appropriate vegetation management on high risk sites - but available geological data is only useful on a large scale - on an individual site the risk can be much different from that suggested by the Geological risk maps - due to unmapped superficial deposits.