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The goal of France's first regional survey of everyday landscapes and their impact on residents is to help local elected officials understand how residents feel and act accordingly. Entitled "Well-being and Breton landscapes", this survey was carried out by the Observatory of the Environment in Brittany and its partners. It answers two questions: What characteristics make people consider landscapes as quality today? What are the challenges for improving the quality of landscapes for the future?
During the autumn-winter period of 2022-2023, nearly 2,300 Bretons answered some 50 questions that enquired about their feelings and wishes concerning the landscapes less than 1 km from their home, the landscapes less than 1 km from their workplace, and the landscapes they visited for leisure activities. In view of the large number of respondents, for the first time, the landscape's social dimension, "the part of the territory as perceived by people", has been substantiated by robust data [1] on a regional scale.
For example, the results on landscapes in the living environment give us information on socio-spatial inequalities. Appreciation of well-being shows major differences depending on the respondent's age. Young people feel least well in their living environment and have least contact with nature. They live in places that they describe as noisy, in collective buildings, in densely populated areas People aged 65 and older feel best compared with other age groups and give most priority to contact with nature. This age group generally lives in places described as calm, in detached houses and more sparsely populated areas.
Often mistakenly judged as a non-operational concept because it is "too" subjective, the landscape is in fact an entry point for defining shared perspectives: 75% of residents believe that the priority action is to maintain the bocage [2]. The bocage is the symbol of a conquest of desired rural landscapes: it is associated with regional identity through its farming history and its multifunctionality in the service of the environment (water, air, soil quality, etc.).
In the case of residents of densely populated areas, the answers are more varied: have access to natural areas, implement solutions to offset the consequences of climate change or limit light pollution at night. Thus, the urban environment is seen as a laboratory for a variety of actions to be implemented in response to environmental problems.
This survey shows that the landscape approach can be used to decipher the interrelations between social groups and the environment and may be a strong lever for "making a success of the ecological transition [3]". The next step is to repeat the survey in 10 years' time, to measure the changes in residents' perceptions of landscape transformations.
The results of the regional survey "Well-being and Breton landscapes" can be accessed here.
[1] Due to the large sample size, it was weighted according to the sociological characteristics of the Breton population (age, gender, socio-professional categories and weight of the Breton population by département). As a result, the results are representative of the Breton population.
[2] "In landscape terms, the bocage is a semi-enclosed space marked by the presence of living hedges enclosing each plot of land", definition taken from Géoconfluences, accessed on 23/05/2024 and here.
[3] See the note from La Fabrique Écologique "Réussir la transition écologique par l’approche paysagère", published in April 2024. Accessed on 23/05/2024 and available here.
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