Mettre cartes sur table et parler de son territoire de l’eau : un (en)jeu pour les acteurs ?

Abstract

The collective construction of solutions in territories challenged by water supply problems often runs up against the difficulty local stakeholders have in sharing different views about the same subject. So a new tool has been designed which expresses key points concerning water resources in their territory as perceived by each stakeholder. This tool is composed of cards displaying pictograms that illustrate multiple themes associated with the question of water quality. It was tested using individual interviews in five catchment areas. This trial was carried out to ensure that the tool is complete and that it enables stakeholders to structure their responses by revealing, to their own satisfaction, those elements that they judge to be explanatory of their territory. It was then verified that, although they are restricted by the same regulatory framework, these territories are far from being identical in their structural and explanatory elements, and that the different stakeholders’ visions for the same territory do not tie in with each other, but are linked to their own objectives. Making these differences of visions explicit for the local actors is important for the construction of effective and acceptable local solutions. The originality and main interest of this new tool resides in the plasticity (the same visual ‘absorbs’ a variety of statements) and neutrality of the cards, which distances the remarks from positions and, on the contrary, encourages the expression of needs or an analysis of the situation.

Keywords

• stakeholders
• communication
• information
• water catchment
• area
• tool