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In the Arcachon Basin, subject to coastal flooding, social vulnerability is increasing, in parallel with the very high population growth of this part of the French Atlantic coast. In the context of the BARCASUB research program, proposals for coastal flooding management, focused not only on hard defense measures, but also on new defense measures using depolderisation, are being studied by scientists and environmental managers and proposed to local stakeholders. Up to now, local population and stakeholders have been relatively opposed to depolderisation, which we have measured thanks to geographical and economic investigations. In particular, we analyze how social perceptions and local uses can explain this refusal. The BARCASUB program tries to educate the local population and stakeholders about the role of depolderisation in risk management of coastal flooding. It proposes a fresh examination of coastal flooding, the participation of local stakeholders and populations in the thinking process and the spatialization of social perceptions and local uses to help find compromise solutions.