UDTR Global Rights of Nature Radar

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

Identification

Public canonical key

doi:10.3390/su142416677

Authors

Lina Yousry · Yixin Cao · Bruno Marmiroli · Olivier Guerri · Guillaume Delaunay · Olivier Riquet · Karl Matthias Wantzen

Reported year

2022

Reported language

en

Source type

article

First detected

2026-11-09T19:04:47.720696+00:00

Last metadata observation

2026-11-09T19:04:47.720696+00:00

Last HTTP verification

Not checked

Institutions reported by the source

CItés, Territoires, Environnement et Sociétés · Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique · Laboratoire Image, Ville, Environnement · UNESCO · University of Bristol · Université de Strasbourg · Université de Tours

Reported affiliation countries

FR · GB

Documentary abstract — original language

The environmental management of rivers faces a substantial geographical problem: due to their elongate shape and their position at the valley bottom, the area that they cover is fragmented by territorial borders. Therefore, only very few river basins or substantial parts of them have yet been assigned as dedicated sites (nature reserves, parks, etc.). Commonly, these sites occur in a scattered pattern within the riverscape and belong to different administrative units, which makes coordinated conservation and management difficult. Moreover, access to documented results is limited, and the practical experience of site managers remains an unexploited source of knowledge. Here, we compare two sites, the Loire valley (with a large zone protected by a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Natura 2000 sites network, and a French Regional Natural Park, which are partially overlapping) and the Dordogne watershed (entirely belonging to the first UNESCO Biosphere Reserve of this kind and a French Public Basin Establishment). The targets concerning conservation and sustainable management of these sites differ, however, they all focus on cultural and ecological sustainability. Combining reports and interviews with the respective site managers with literature back searches, and analyzing these data with case study and content analysis methods, we addressed the following questions: (1) What are the priority management issues, including threats that impact the site from outside, and how are they tackled? (2) Who are the stakeholders and what are their interrelationships? (3) What are the dynamics of socio-ecological systems related to riverscapes? (4) How to conserve and manage riverscapes with socio-ecological approaches? and (5) What are the best management practices from the Loire River Valley and Dordogne basin cases that can be harnessed in other riverscapes? We show that the Loire River Valley and Dordogne River basin present positive examples for a transdisciplinary socio-ecological approach to conserving and managing riverscapes, integrating diverse stakeholder knowledge in participatory decision-making, recognizing the natural character of the river, and coupling social and hydrological systems. The greatest achievement of the site managers is that they have built up trust and found feasible solutions for satisfying the different interests of diverse stakeholders. Ingenuity and perseverance, combined with excellent moderation skills, were the most important characteristics leading to success. The overall target of this paper is to evidence problems and their solutions concerning the management of dedicated sites that are connected to rivers, to encourage the creation of further sites of this type, and to facilitate cooperation between different types of dedicated sites.

Identifiers

OPENALEX

W4311351217

DOI

10.3390/su142416677

HAL

hal-05129948

Documentary context

Documentary family

Scholarship

Source-reported types

article

Jurisdictions studied — explicit sources

FR

Natural entities mentioned

River · Watershed · Territory

Entity mentions are not evidence of legal recognition. Jurisdiction studied is separate from author affiliation country.

Sources

OpenAlex · Record 1 · Record 2 · Record 3

• DOI · https://doi.org/10.3390/su142416677
• HAL · https://hal.science/hal-05129948
• OpenAlex · https://openalex.org/W4311351217

Documented bibliographic relations

Source-declared references and links; they do not establish legal support or UGLC qualification. Up to 20 outgoing references are displayed.

• openalex:w1023388751 · CITES
• openalex:w1502456417 · CITES
• openalex:w1503510433 · CITES
• openalex:w1559131556 · CITES
• openalex:w1568955415 · CITES
• openalex:w1572817382 · CITES
• openalex:w1710141319 · CITES
• openalex:w1900604922 · CITES
• openalex:w1940968818 · CITES
• openalex:w1971956618 · CITES
• openalex:w1972313765 · CITES
• openalex:w1976759885 · CITES
• openalex:w1977188658 · CITES
• openalex:w2002382408 · CITES
• openalex:w2015053255 · CITES
• openalex:w2035153982 · CITES
• openalex:w2057438322 · CITES
• openalex:w2065862320 · CITES
• openalex:w2067404301 · CITES
• openalex:w2069365504 · CITES

2 incoming references within the detected corpus

Documentary status

Relevance pending

Library

This identity is not yet included in the Legal Library.