Comparing social representation of water quality in coastal lagoons with normative use of ecological indicators

Abstract

International audienc

A Multidisciplinary Approach for Restoration Ecology of Shallow Coastal Lagoons, a Case Study in South France

“…Figure 8 shows that in general the water quality has improved from 2000 to 2013 for the lagoons of the PLC, although in 2013 only two (Ingril Nord and Ingril Sud) of eight lagoons had achieved "good" ecological status for the water column, while the rest was reported as poor or moderate. Social representation of water quality by the local populations was identified and compared to the water quality assessment carried out according to the French surveillance monitoring system (Audouit et al, 2019). More than half of the interviewees in the PLC considered water quality as moderate (40%) or good (26%).…”

“…Hence, social representation gave a higher score than the surveillance monitoring. Partly this difference could be attributed to the conservative scoring used in the WFD based on the principle "one out all out" (Audouit et al, 2019). Nevertheless, both the surveillance monitoring and the social perception of water quality explain a perception in society of the failure of achieving WFD goals for a large number of coastal lagoons.…”

“…Interestingly, the social representation of the biodiversity of the coastal lagoons was much more positive than that of water quality, with 40% valuing as high and 40% valuing as good for the lagoons of the PLC. In general, interviewees judged that the current situation was better than in the past (Audouit et al, 2019), meaning that some positive impact of public policy and management has been perceived by the general public.…”

“…Stakeholders have a positive perception of the ecological and societal importance of coastal lagoons and of the need of their ecological restoration, i.e., more than 85% of both residents and tourists close to Montpellier expressed this point of view (De Wit et al, 2017). However, the social representation of the lagoons is more focused on biodiversity aspects than on water quality sensu stricto (Audouit et al, 2019). There is consensus among both the highly involved stakeholders (Sy et al, 2018) and among the local residents, who participated in our citizen workshops, on giving highest importance to the regulation and maintenance ecosystem services.…”

Comparing social representations of the landscape: a methodology

“…The SRT has, for instance, proven useful to explain how socialecological changes are perceived by nonexperts, and to overcome the opposition between an objective and a subjective perception of changes (Krien and Michel-Guillou 2014). Several studies have demonstrated the relevance of SRT in understanding inhabitant's or users' perceptions of change in SESs, such as changes in water quality in lagoons (Audouit et al 2019), flooding risks in coastal areas (Lemée et al 2019), ecosystem services in periurban areas (De Vreese et al 2019), land use in rural landscapes (Anderson et al 2017), conflicts in national parks (Buijs et al 2011), rural development in alpine grassland landscapes (Quétier et al 2010), and adaptive comanagement in recreational mountain landscapes (Lai et al 2016). These studies show how existing SRs of the landscape and/or the SES dynamics shape beliefs about land use (Anderson et al 2017).…”