Gaële ROUILLÉ-KIELO, INRAE, France
Paris, like other metropolitan regions, is developing strategies to adapt to climate change. In addition to the fight against air pollution, measures are being taken to combat the phenomenon of urban heat islands and to increase the city's resilience to heat waves. For example, one of the key points of Paris' bid for the 2024 Olympics - the organization of open water swimming competitions in the Seine River, in the very heart of the capital - is expected to be left as a legacy for city dwellers and lead to the reintroduction of the possibility of bathing in the river. The municipality presents these future river pools as a source of refreshment for Parisians and visitors in the face of increasingly frequent heat waves. Beyond this practical aspect, the proponents of the "right to bathe" in the city consider this practice as a reclamation of the river considered as a public space, a common good, little accessible to city dwellers because entirely dedicated to the (mercantile) activities of river transport and tourism. This need for access to nature in the city has become all the more pressing since the health crisis, during which the importance of "blue spaces" such as rivers and canals as key elements of urban well-being has been highlighted. In the future, however, the advent of recreational activities on the river could lead to conflicts of use, particularly because of the river's growing strategic role in the decarbonization of the economy. Indeed, the transport of goods and construction materials on the Seine is expected to increase in the coming years, with the support of the authorities and state funds for this purpose. Thus, there is a competition between a longitudinal use of the river (for transport) to respond to the global challenge of climate change and a local use of the river (bathing) to increase the resilience of urban spaces to climate change. This paper will discuss these trends in urban strategies to climate change that are not specific to Paris.
Keywords: urban rivers|climate change|bathing|resilience|decarbonization
A105473GR