Dordogne: The First UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Covering an Entire River Basin

River culture: How socio‐ecological linkages to the rhythm of the waters develop, how they are lost, and how they can be regained

“…This makes them archetypes of deities to be worshipped but also feared, e.g., in the Andean cosmology (Boelens, 2014), in Australia (Anderson et al, 2019), and in ancient Egypt (Bunbury et al, 2022) or Asia (Cao & Vazhayil, 2022). Bank slumping and other geomorphological risks were associated with river‐dwelling monsters such as the ‘ minhocão ’ (giant worm) in the Paraguay River or the ‘ coulobre ’ (a giant snake) in the French Dordogne (Michau et al, 2022; Wantzen, Girard, et al, 2022). In larger floodplains, the hydrological cycle also produces an alternating pattern of ‘possession’, when the terrestrial phase allows the establishment of terri tories and the use of well‐defined resources, and ‘commons’, when the aquatic phase homogenises the available resources and allows different users to access them, which results in similar but highly sophisticated social rules for alternating uses of space for cattle transhumance, drawdown agriculture, and fisheries in geographically distant places such as the Pantanal and the Niger Inner Delta (Berton, et al, 2022; Wantzen, Girard, et al, 2022).…”

A Socio-Ecological Approach to Conserve and Manage Riverscapes in Designated Areas: Cases of the Loire River Valley and Dordogne Basin, France

“…It was also used to establish a comparison with other designated river conservation sites. Recently, a global study has been undertaken to analyze the patterns and processes of biological and cultural diversities of more than thirty river systems worldwide, including chapters on the studied rivers (see [50], for the Loire and [49], for the Dordogne). The cited and analyzed literature relevant to the research questions of our study was used here to provide supplementary information in addition to the results delivered by the interviews, but due to the great heterogeneity and number of articles, it was not considered for the textual analysis described above (Section 2.2).…”

“…Below the confluence with the Garonne River (downstream Bordeaux), the joint estuary of the two The Dordogne River is 480 km long and runs through south-central and southwest France. It is the fifth largest watershed in France, with an area of 24,000 km 2 (see [49] and [80] for detailed analyses of the biophysical and cultural settings, respectively). Below the confluence with the Garonne River (downstream Bordeaux), the joint estuary of the two rivers flowing into the Atlantic is called Gironde.…”

“…Many farms are practicing polyculture, with cattle breeding and orchards in the upstream and cereals (corn) in the downstream zone of the river [85]. At the same time, the environmental quality of the Dordogne supports many touristic activities and makes the region famous for its biological and cultural diversities [49,81] Both rivers are subject to seasonal flow variations with a predominant flood period in winter and spring (January to March), alternating with low waters in summer and autumn (July to October). However, unpredictable fast flood events may occur throughout the year and result in a respectful and even fearful relationship with the rivers in the past.…”

“…In both case study sites, the tension between a historically developed landscape with important biodiversity and tourism, on one side, and the increasing water demand for hydropower use and agriculture under climate change stress, on the opposite side, is evident. The status of the biological and cultural elements has recently been reviewed for both sites [49,50], but studies on the management practices in the sites are scarce [51]. Our study focuses on the practical and long-term experience of the managers of the respective sites and how they develop and maintain long-term relationships with the different social levels and know where to act at each level.…”