The objective of this work is to understand the relationships between the organization of territory, as detectable in the landscape, and the management of renewable resources. The study is applied to the Chestnut forest landscape in the Cevennes. The process of analysis is at the spatial level. It begins with a natural and social features assessment which leads to the selection of the most appropriate spatial entity in order to explain the natural and social aspects of land-use by man. For the Cevennes, the chosen entity is the rural "quartier", which is the basic pattern for landscape organization. It is composed of interacting landscape elements. It can be combined with other patterns to create landscapes. This relates the "quartier" to other levels of spatial organization. To understand spatial aspects of territorial land-use, a hypothetico-deductive type of spatial analysis follows this features assessment. The "quartier" pattern is modeled following the principles of graphic modeling. The hypotheses of spatial organization are validated partly due to the use of a GIS (Geographic Information System). The fundamental spatial rule of territorial land-use is the centre-periphery model with a marked duality between the intensive land-use area (buildings, terraces, prairies, orchards) and the extensive land-use area (Chestnut forests, moors, other forest types ). This elementary structure is deformed by a slope system at play at a regional level through altitudinal gradients, and at a local level through the topography that limits land-use. Spatial analysis is linked to an in-depth analysis of landscape elements, by which history, function and the dynamics of each of these are studied and considered in their spatial aspects. This permits to relate this analysis to the spatial analysis, to validate hypotheses of territorial land-use and to encourage the emergence of new ones. The study of landscape elements permits to establish the resource management models. In particular, a typology of Chestnut forests is proposed, according to spatial criteria. The function models are constructed for each type. The connection between the spatial model and the functionning of landscape elements allows for an understanding of the relationship between territorial organization and rural practices. Graphic spatiotemporal models are proposed for renewable resource management practices which affect the Chestnut forest landscapes of the Cevennes (grazing, fire management, harvesting, gathering, hunting). These models synthesize the spatial expression of these practices over the course of the year. Their correspondence allows for the uncovering of spatial interests at play in resource management and the confrontations between actors that this generates. Finally, the relationships between territorial organization and resource management are considered from the perspective of their dynamics. To understand the land-use evolution of small territories in the Cevennes, three analysis methods are used: the comparison by GIS of two successive states of the same territory, the relating by a GIS of a territorial reference state with the chronology of land-use events that modeled it; the overlaying of function models for Chestnut forest types with a surface evolution matrix over the course of time. A synthesis demonstrates how these three methods can be integrated for the management of rural space.
