Good practice:

Restoration of the river Cagne

The goal was to build a roadmap to coordinate and prioritize actions for the restoration of the banks of the river Cagne and to enhance its attractiveness and ecosystem services, focusing on 3 main themes:
– flood risk mitigation, water quality preservation and management of agricultural activities
– reorganisation of soft mobility and public space around the river
– restoration of ecological and geomorpĥological continuity.
The roadmap was elaborated by a partnership between local services, the National Landscape School and STOA Artelia in 3 phases:
– Analysis/data synthesis: hydrological/geomorphological analysis, mapping of river uses
– Analysis of restoration needs
– Preliminary studies/proposals for riverbank management
A variety of stakeholder engagement activities were managed by a specialised private organisation to enable technicians, politicians and citizens to share their points of view and ask questions:
– Mobilisation, listening:
– numerical forum: questionnaire, participative mapping, co-construction workshop
– Cagne river visit and comments
– Public awareness
– 4 thematic conferences on issues revealed by the various scientific analyses, 1 workshop on planned scenarios
– Presentation of results: video, newsletters, posters, exhibits
Stakeholders: the water agency, Nice Côte d’Azur Metropolis and Cagnes-sur-Mer city. Originality: the holistic and integrated approach along the whole extent of the river and a strong will for public consultation

Since 1995 more than 5 million € dedicated to land acquisition, riverbank restoration, flood management including: 120 000 € for the restoration roadmap (50% was granted by the regional water agency), 2million€ for the whole restoration project, from agricultural Lowlands to the sea.

Actions implemented since 1995:
– flood risk mitigation, biodiversity enhancement
– restoration of the Cagne river environment: creation of 32 ha of protected natural areas, riverbank restoration, facilitation of soft mobility, planning public areas layout,
– restoration of ecological/geomorphological continuity, morphological restoration, weir removal, eel migration studies
– water quality management: acquisition by city of 1.3ha of agricultural land for environmentally friendly farming.

1. Mobilization of a large number of different stakeholders
2. Co-steering between Cagnes city and NCA metropole in a local term of office period
3. Divergent ways of viewing/living/using the Cagne river environments (from upstream agricultural areas to the downstream urban zones).

This GP appears to be very interesting to learn from, particularly on the following points:
1. The holistic approach adopted along the whole length of the river: socio-economic uses, biodiversity, water quality, environmentally friendly agriculture, soft mobility, urban cool zone, urban quality of life;
2. Stakeholder engagement throughout the process, structured in several steps where conflicts of interest were regularly discussed with all the community (politicians, technical experts, general public);
3. The creation of a ‘turquoise corridor’ which combines the preservation of blue corridors (rivers, streams and wet environments) and green corridors (terrestrial natural habitats)