Storytelling around the Seine

With Youssef Diab, Professor of Urban Engineering at Université Gustave Eiffel, member of Lab’URBA and Scientific Director at EIVP, and Bernard Landau, President of the association La Seine n’est pas à Vendre (SPAV).

In January 1910, when the Seine was experiencing one of its most devastating floods, Parisians watched the gradual submergence of the Zouave on the Pont de l’Alma to gauge how fast the waters were rising. A century later, researchers at Lab’URBA* are helping to develop tools for operational management in the event of major flooding on the Seine. Beyond their methodological differences, these two approaches address the same issue: the way we look at rivers, natural and dynamic elements around which various ecosystems, including human beings, evolve.

Combining the views of scientists and the general public

While understanding rivers is now largely the preserve of the technical community, the view of the general public deserves to be more widely solicited and exploited. This is particularly the case when land development issues are at stake, with impacts that are not only related to the land, but are also economic and ecological. The “La Seine en Commun” project has sought to determine how this shared vision is to be developed.

Mutually enriching knowledge

To achieve this, each party draws on their own specific skills. For lecturers in the Urban Engineering department, it is their expertise in the principles of mapping and analysis of urban management and use. For members of the association La Seine n'est pas à Vendre (The Seine is not for Sale), it is their local knowledge and civic issues. It is not just about juxtaposing knowledge, but combining it so that it mutually enriches the collaborative process of hearing and understanding what citizens have to say.

* Urban planning laboratory bringing together research professors from Université Gustave Eiffel and Université Paris-Est Créteil (UPEC).

Texts written by the Kogito agency after interviewing the co-sponsors.