My river is not your river: resident and expert values associated with an urban river in a restoration context (Yzeron River, France)

Marylise Cottet (1, 2, 3) , Marie Augendre (1, 3, 4) , Dad Roux-Michollet (3, 1, 2) , Hervé Tronchere (5)

1 Université de Lyon
2 ENS de Lyon - École normale supérieure de Lyon
3 EVS - Environnement, Ville, Société
4 UL2 - Université Lumière - Lyon 2
5 Chercheur indépendant

The management of urban rivers requires considering and reconciling multiple stakeholders that mostly have their own definition of river quality – which especially depends on the uses and values they associate with urban rivers. The consideration of these different views favours the identification and arbitration of all issues and the definition of more integrative projects. This challenge is especially strong when implementing a river restoration project: stakeholders must agree on the kind of river that should be restored. To address this issue, and since environments are mainly experienced through the senses, we implemented a landscape assessment study. This paper presents the results of an eye-tracking experiment. It was carried out along the Yzeron River, a tributary of the Rhone River located in an urban area. The Yzeron River is being restored in several steps: a small section was restored in 2008, and a larger section is currently under restoration since 2014. Before this second stage, 27 residents and 20 experts were asked to walk along the waterway (in pre-restored and post-restored sections), wearing eye-tracking glasses. They had to assess, at predetermined stops, the quality of the scene, by answering a questionnaire. The eye-tracking and the questionnaire data were qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed. The results underline that both experts and residents value “natural” rivers. But what they call natural is fundamentally different. Residents tend to value an arcadian nature where everything is under control and well maintained. Functional processes are only weakly considered when evaluating their environment, whereas experts refer above all to a functional nature for defining river quality. This difference of perception may partly relate to different points of views regarding the ecosystem services they link with an urban river.

Mots clés: perception; value; restoration; river; landscape; mobile eye-tracking

Domaines: Sciences de l'Homme et Société

Marylise Cottet, Marie Augendre, Dad Roux-Michollet, Hervé Tronchere. My river is not your river: resident and expert values associated with an urban river in a restoration context (Yzeron River, France). Ecohydrology' 2015: Measuring, Modeling and Managing of the natural processes related to water flows, Social values of the linked ecosystem services, Sep 2015, Lyon, France. ⟨halshs-01250458⟩