Journal of Environmental Management 128 (2013) 1012e1022

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Journal of Environmental Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jenvman

Does human perception of wetland aesthetics and healthiness relate

to ecological functioning?
Marylise Cottet a, *, Herv Pigay a, Gudrun Bornette b
a
b

CNRS-UMR 5600 Environnement, Ville, Socit, 15 parvis Ren Descartes, BP 7000, F-69342 Lyon Cedex 07, France
CNRS-UMR 5023 Laboratoire dEcologie des Hydrosystmes Fluviaux, Bt. Forel, F-69622 Villeurbanne Cedex, France

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 5 December 2012
Received in revised form
22 June 2013
Accepted 28 June 2013
Available online 27 July 2013

Wetland management usually aims at preserving or restoring desirable ecological characteristics or

functions. It is now well-recognized that some social criteria should also be included. Involving laypeople in wetland preservation or restoration projects may mean broadening project objectives to t
various and potentially competing requirements that relate to ecology, aesthetics, recreation, etc. In
addition, perceived value depends both upon expertise and objectives, both of which vary from one
stakeholder population to another. Perceived value and ecological functioning have to be reconciled in
order to make a project successful. Understanding the perceptions of lay-people as well as their opinions
about ecological value is a critical part of the development of sustainable management plans. Characterizing the environment in a way that adequately describes ecological function while also being
consistent with lay perception may help reach such objectives.
This goal has been addressed in a case study relating to wetlands of the Ain River (France). A photoquestionnaire presenting a sample of photographs of riverine wetlands distributed along the Ain River
was submitted to 403 lay-people and self-identied experts. Two objectives were dened: (1) to identify
the different parameters, whether visual or ecological, inuencing the perception regarding the value of
these ecosystems; (2) to compare the perceptions of self-identied experts and lay-people.
Four criteria appear to strongly inuence peoples perceptions of ecological and aesthetical values:
water transparency and colour, the presence and appearance of aquatic vegetation, the presence of
sediments, and nally, trophic status. In our study, we observed only a few differences in perception. The
differences primarily related to the value assigned to oligotrophic wetlands but even here, the differences
between lay and expert populations were minimal. These results support the idea that it is possible to
implement an integrated and participative management program for ecosystems. Our approach can
provide a shared view of environmental value facilitating the work of managers in dening comprehensive goals for wetland preservation or restoration projects.
2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Perception
Value
Riverine wetland
Aesthetics
Healthiness
Trophic status
Photoquestionnaire
Ain River

1. Introduction
1.1. Current principles of, and challenges to, wetland preservation
and restoration
The rapid and sustained loss and degradation of wetlands
threaten human well-being through the biodiversity loss as well as
the loss of goods and services provided by such ecosystems
(Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). Many attempts have
been made to restore degraded wetlands. Such actions rely on
understanding how ecosystems work, i.e. by identifying the

* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: marylise.cottet@ens-lyon.fr (M. Cottet).
0301-4797/$ e see front matter 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2013.06.056

dominant processes (physical, chemical and biological) which

affect the structure and dynamics of habitats and their associated
ecological communities (Bravard et al., 1997; Mateos et al., 2012;
Sieben et al., 2010). Such knowledge enables the development of
a description of the desirable functioning of the ecosystem (i.e. in
the context of the European Water Framework Directive, the
functioning we should preserve or restore to reach a good
ecological status). In practice, ecosystems are commonly assessed
according to ecological criteria relating to this good functioning.
The evaluation of ecosystems has thus usually been pursued in a
purely ecological framework without considering any social
objectives.
It is now well recognized, however, that some social criteria
should also be dened for ecosystem preservation and restoration
(Blandin and Bergandi, 2000; Hull and Robertson, 2000). Indeed, all

M. Cottet et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 128 (2013) 1012e1022

individuals forge links with and make value judgements regarding

ecosystems and landscapes (Kaltenborn and Bjerke, 2002). These
value judgements determine the way they think about and react to
these environments (Stephenson, 2008). Consequently, lay-people
are sensitive to the way ecosystems and landscapes appear and
how they change over time. Pragmatically, assuring that a project
meets the goals of the lay population in a way that is consistent
with their perception of environmental value should make environmental projects more acceptable to a broader range of stakeholders, leading to greater stakeholder participation and longer
project life (Higgs, 1997; Miller and Hobbs, 2007; Vining et al.,
2000).
The perception of good ecological status (and implicitly
ecological value) by experts may be contradictory to that of the lay
population. However, these have to be reconciled in order to develop
compromise regarding project objectives. This reconciliation requires the following tasks must be performed for any ecosystem
agged for preservation or restoration: 1) denition of its perceived
value, 2) denition of the ecosystems functioning, and 3) linking
value and function. One solution may be to identify ecological parameters that adequately describe both ecological function and
perceived value for both lay people and experts. This approach implies a strong interdisciplinary dialogue and has rarely been studied
so far. The present study aims to explore this eld and to determine
whether perceived value and ecological functioning of wetlands can
be considered together, thereby providing an approach which will
optimize both social benets and the ecological success of environmental management.
1.2. The case of Ain River wetlands: study area
The study is based on peoples perception of wetlands located
along the Ain River. The Ain River is a tributary of the Rhne River,
in south-eastern France, draining 3500 km2 of the Jura Mountains.
The study focuses on the downstream-most 40 km of the Ain valley,
an area that is characterized by a large alluvial plain containing a
sinuous, meandering river and many remnants of former channels.
It is located within a short drive of Lyon, one of the largest
metropolitan areas in France.
The ecosystems under study are the riverine wetlands associated with the former channels. They have been created by natural
channel shifts across the oodplain and by river cut-offs (Marston
et al., 1995; Amoros and Bornette, 2002). During the last few decades, these wetlands have become increasingly rare due to altered
river dynamics, which have not naturally created any new cut-off
channels (Bornette et al., 1996; Bravard et al., 1997). This situation
led stakeholders to carry out an ambitious restoration project (the
Life Nature program) from 2002 to 2006. While the project had
several objectives, it primarily aimed at restoring bedload transport
and associated channel shifting and improving the connectedness
of the former channels with the main channel. The overarching goal
was to restore wetlands, where natural ecological processes
(groundwater connectivity, water quality) ensured the highest life
span of the aquatic stage, without any need of further anthropic
intervention.
1.3. A focus on perception of aesthetic value and healthiness
There may be several values associated with environments.
These include aesthetics, recreation, biology, economics, religion,
etc (Alessa et al., 2007; Brown and Raymond, 2007; Droz et al.,
2005). Aesthetic value requires specic attention when focussing on ecosystem preservation. Perception of the environments
aesthetics is intimately linked with emotional processes (Appleton,
1975; Kaplan and Kaplan, 1989; Ulrich, 1981) and may create strong

1013

social motivation to preserve ecosystems (Nassauer, 1997, 2004),

regardless of ecological function or vulnerability. It is therefore very
useful for environmental preservation and restoration to consider
lay perception of aesthetics since this inuence the social support
for such projects (Gobster et al., 2007; Nassauer et al., 2001).
Perception of aesthetics depends on personal factors such as
age, gender, experience, environmental awareness, etc., as well as
visual factors such as the physical appearance of the environment
(Augoyard, 1995; Berque, 1995; Nassauer, 1992). While a diversity of
perceptions is usually present within a social community, several
previous studies have shown that e considering aesthetic perception e the variability in perception of from person to person is
generally less than the variability of a typical persons perception of
two distinct environments (Kaplan and Kaplan, 1989; Yang and
Kaplan, 1990; Stamps, 1999; Real et al., 2000). Nevertheless, in
our study, ecological knowledge may widely inuence the
perceived value of environments. We therefore compared differences in perception of two groups that each play an important role
in most restoration projects: experts and lay-people. Conicts between these stakeholders have already been shown to be the main
cause of project failure (Barnaud and Chapuis, 1996; Gobster, 2000).
It is well known that, the presence of water in a landscape can
signicantly inuence perception of aesthetic and ecological values
(Campbell, 1978; Sorvig, 1991; Whalley, 1988), and several studies
have demonstrated that lay-people prefer aquatic landscapes above
others (Nasar and Minhui, 2004; Pitt, 1989; Ulrich, 1983; Wherrett,
2000). However, the kind of aquatic environment may induce a
variation of perception which is worth being studied further.
Ecological value needs to be considered independently from
aesthetic value when dening the objectives of an environmental
preservation or restoration project. Ecological value may be dened
differently for experts and lay-people. For an ecological expert, this
is usually assessed through functional indicators such as species
composition and community structure, often with emphasis on the
presence or absence of indigenous and/or non-native species. Laypeople often do not have this knowledge and must assess the
ecological value of an ecosystem using other criteria. It is therefore
important to dene what a valuable ecosystem is, according to laypeople. In this research, the term health was used to qualify
ecological value since it was supposed to be directly understandable for both experts and lay people (Boulton, 1999; Meyer, 1997).
1.4. Objectives and hypotheses of the research project
This research project aimed at characterizing the perception of
riverine wetlands. It had two primary objectives:

To identify the parameters, whether visual or ecological, that
inuence the perception and evaluation of wetland ecosystems. More specically, we wished to demonstrate how these
parameters were sensitive to a functional ecological indicator:
the trophic status. In the perspective of integrative and
participative ecosystem management, we wanted to identify
ecological parameters that adequately describe both ecological
function and perceived value for both lay people and experts.

To compare the perceptions of experts and lay-people. Since
the perception of quality of aquatic environments are known to
be inuenced by knowledge (Gregory and Davis, 1993; Kenwick
et al., 2009; Vouligny et al., 2009), in the perspective of integrative and participative management, it was important to
identify how the perceptions of experts and lay-people agree or
disagree and to identify the discriminating parameters.
In order to address these objectives, a photo-questionnaire was
created and distributed to several experts and lay-people.

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M. Cottet et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 128 (2013) 1012e1022

2. Methodology
2.1. Photo-questionnaire survey
2.1.1. Selection of wetland scenes used to assess human perception
In order to better understand how individuals perceive
different kinds of riverine wetlands, we presented a set of wetland
photographs to people and asked them to assess each one according to two perceptual criteria: aesthetics and environmental
health.
Photograph-based surveys provide responses that are strongly
and positively correlated to those based on direct perception of the
same scene, attesting to their validity for studies of perception
(Daniel and Boster, 1976; Shuttleworth, 1980; Stamps, 1990; Vining
and Orland, 1989; Zube et al., 1989). Furthermore, photographbased methods avoid the need for in-situ surveys, limiting practical difculties associated with access and enabling the testing of
hypotheses based on well-dened visual criteria. A set of 16 photographs, focussing on water, was collected from the study area
(Fig. 1). Photographs were selected and classied according to two
criteria (Table 1):

A visual criterion (4 classes): reective water, transparent water with visible substrate, water with oating aquatic vegetation, and water with aquatic vegetation growing under the
waters surface; and

An ecological parameter regarding the trophic status of the
wetland (3 classes): eutrophic, mesotrophic, and oligotrophic.
Nutrient level is, among other things, a factor that strongly rules
the ecological functioning of wetlands. This parameter is related to
the water sources supplying the wetland (e.g. groundwater or
surface water, since they may differ in quality) and to the human
activities around the wetland (e.g. pastures, cultivated elds.).
Nutrients strongly rule the composition and productivity of plant
communities and therefore the ecosystem functioning. Riverine
wetlands can be categorized, on the basis of the composition of
plant communities, into three functional classes from oligotrophic
(low nutrient availability) to eutrophic (high nutrient availability)
(Amoros et al., 2000). Moreover, the trophic status of riverine
wetlands has visual impacts: plant cover and composition of plant
communities are affected, as well as water transparency. This
ecological parameter may therefore inuence perception. Indeed, a

Fig. 1. Set of photographs used in the photo-questionnaire survey.

M. Cottet et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 128 (2013) 1012e1022

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Table 1
Characteristics of the photographs chosen in terms of the parameters used for sampling (each letter is a photograph shown in Fig. 1).
Trophic status
Eutrophic
Visual parameters

Reecting water
Transparent water with sediments
Water with oating aquatic vegetation
Water with vegetation growing under the surface

very high water transparency and oligotraphent plant communities

characterize nutrient poor wetlands of the Ain River. In wetlands
with intermediate nutrient levels, the moderate nutrient enrichment causes shifts in macrophyte composition to mesotraphent
communities, and high plant cover. Eutraphent communities,
dominated by species with oating leaves, dominate nutrient-rich
ecosystems. Finally, very high nutrient levels leads to a decrease
in water transparency as well as in aquatic macrophyte cover due to
phytoplankton blooms. However, high water transparency, or
conversely, high water turbidity, are not always correlated directly
with high trophic level, since water transparency can also be
affected by other parameters (e.g. low temperatures limit phytoplankton blooms in nutrient-rich waters, and suspended solids
generate turbidity in nutrient-poor streams). The trophic status
may turn out to be a good shared indicator, relating functioning to
environmental perception and embracing ecological and social
objectives. This is why we considered this criterion in our survey.
The classication of the photographs was based on visual
expertise. Where visual information was insufcient to deduce the
nutrient class of the riverine wetland, the photograph was classed
as unknown.
2.1.2. Respondents
The survey was conducted over the Internet. 403 individuals
answered the questionnaire (Table 2). The respondents fell into the
following professional categories: environmental managers (12%),
environmental scientists (19%), ecology students (10%), geography
students (10%), and students in disciplines unconnected with the
environment (48%). Individuals were self-identied as expert (125
participants) and lay-people (278 participants) using the following
question in the questionnaire; Do you have knowledge of wetlands
ecology? (Yes/No). All participants were contacted by e-mail at
their professional addresses. The survey responses of students in
geography and in unconnected disciplines generally resulted in
their classication as lay-people: they claim no specic knowledge
of wetland ecology. Conversely, the ecology students generally
claimed to have such knowledge. Environmental managers and
scientists are more heterogeneous categories of stakeholders; a
little more than half the participants of these categories (60% and
54% respectively) claim to have knowledge of wetland ecology.

Mesotrophic

Oligotrophic

Unknown
E/M/O
H/J/C

B/I/L

D
A/G/N

F/K/P

2.1.3. The questionnaire: questions and tools used to assess human

perception
This study aimed at characterizing the perceptions of aesthetics
and healthiness held by self-identied experts and lay respondents
(in the following paragraphs, self-identied experts are named
experts). They were therefore asked to assess 16 photographs of
wetlands based on to their apparent aesthetics and health.
To rate the photographs, respondents were asked to use an
analogous visual scale. Initially developed in medicine for the
treatment of pain (Lukasiewicz et al., 2001), such a scale has been
recently used for studying landscape perception (Le Lay et al., 2012;
Pigay et al., 2005). The scale is continuous and bounded by
assessment terms (very high aesthetic value vs. no aesthetic
value, very healthy vs. not at all healthy). Participants were
asked to indicate the point on the scale corresponding to their
assessment. A graduated ruler transforms each position into a mark
(/10) producing continuous quantitative data tables for statistical
analyses.
Having assessed the 16 photographs, each participant was asked
to provide at least three words to characterize four of the 16 photographs: the two highest scoring and the two lowest scoring in
terms of aesthetics. We then performed a content analysis of the
collected terms. This consisted of an objective, exhaustive,
methodical and, if possible, quantitative analysis of a material
constituted of verbal communications (.) in order to classify and
interpret its elements (Berelson, 1954). We dened word classes,
each corresponding to a unit of meaning, and measured their
occurrences.
2.2. Statistical analyses
Using intergroup comparisons, we analysed the inuence of
visual and ecological parameters on participants perceptions, i.e.
the assessments of aesthetics and healthiness. Thanks to the
normality of the data collected, parametric statistical tests (ANOVA
test and Tukeys test) were used. In order to identify the links between the ecological characteristics of wetlands and their perception, we conducted a correspondence factorial analysis on the
occurrence of the classes of words used to describe the wetlands.
3. Results

Table 2
Numbers and proles of survey participants declared as having or not having
ecological knowledge.
Survey participants

Without ecological
knowledge

With ecological
knowledge

Total

Students in geography
Students in ecology
Students in disciplines
without any link to
environmental studies
Environmental managers
Environmental scientists
Total

34
7
182

8
35
11

42
42
193

19
36
278

29
42
125

48
78
403

3.1. The perception of wetland aesthetics and healthiness: what

inuence do visual and functional criteria have?
3.1.1. Perception of aesthetics
The visual criteria considered in our study strongly inuenced
the perception of wetlands (Fig. 2A). The ANOVA test, which compares the mean aesthetic scores of the four visual classes, was very
signicant (p < 0.0001). Only the fourth class of photographs,
which was images of water containing submerged aquatic vegetation, was scored differently with regards to aesthetics (Tukeys
test, p < 0.0001). The respondents judged this visual class to have
strong aesthetic value, whereas reective waters, clear waters with

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M. Cottet et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 128 (2013) 1012e1022

Fig. 2. Plots of the wetlands aesthetic and health scores (mean value and 95% condence interval) classied according to visual class (A) and trophic class (B).

apparent substrate and waters with oating aquatic vegetation

were judged to be of fair aesthetic value. Perception of aesthetics
was strongly correlated to wetland trophic status (Fig. 2B) (ANOVA,
p < 0.0001). Each pair of means was signicantly different from the
others (Tukeys test, p < 0.0001). The higher the trophic status was,
the lower was the aesthetic appreciation.
Perception of aesthetics differed signicantly between selfidentied experts and lay-people (ANOVA, p < 0.05). It differed
even more when combined with the visual criteria (p < 0.0001) or
the trophic criteria (p < 0.0001). Concerning the visual criteria, the
Tukeys test measuring the difference in perception between experts and lay-people is only signicant for two groups. Reective
waters were rated lower by experts (p < 0.05), and waters with

submerged aquatic vegetation were rated higher by them

(p < 0.0001). Concerning the trophic criteria, the Tukeys test
showed that the lower the trophic status, the more signicant the
difference between the assessment of experts and lay-people (not
signicant for eutrophic water, p < 0.001 for mesotrophic water
and p < 0.0001 for oligotrophic water). Thus, self-identied experts
seemed to give a higher aesthetic value to waters with a low trophic
status than lay-people did.
3.1.2. Perception of healthiness
Perception of wetland healthiness also strongly relied on visual
(ANOVA, p < 0.0001) and trophic criteria (ANOVA, p < 0.0001)
(Fig. 2AeB). Each visual class was signicantly different from the

M. Cottet et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 128 (2013) 1012e1022

others (Tukeys test, p < 0.001), except for transparent waters

associated with sediment without any vegetation, as compared
with water with oating aquatic vegetation. These two poorlydiscriminated classes received the lowest health assessment
scores. Reective waters showed medium health assessment
scores, whereas waters with submerged aquatic vegetation
received distinctly higher health assessment scores (Tukeys test,
p < 0.0001). The perception of a wetlands healthiness was also
strongly determined by its trophic status. Fig. 2B shows the same
statistical dependence as the perception of aesthetics did: the
higher the trophic status was, the lower was the health appreciation. Each comparison of each pair was statistically signicant
(Tukeys test, p < 0.0001).
Finally, the perception of wetland healthiness differed signicantly between self-identied experts and lay-people, particularly
when it was combined with visual or trophic criteria (ANOVA,
p < 0.0001 in both cases). Concerning visual criteria, the difference
in perception between experts and lay-people of a wetlands
healthiness was very signicant for two groups: waters with
oating or submerged aquatic vegetation (Tukeys test, p < 0.0001).
Concerning the trophic criteria, experts considered eutrophic water
to be signicantly less healthy, and oligotrophic water to be
signicantly healthier, than lay-people did (Tukeys test, p < 0.0001
in both cases). Since the assessments of wetland healthiness
depend on environmental knowledge, it may also depend on the
extent to which such knowledge has been developed: a student,
even if claiming to have knowledge in wetland ecology, may have
less experience than a scientist who has studied the topic for years.
However, the results of this study invalidated this hypothesis
(Fig. 3). Perceptions of wetland healthiness did not differ

1017

signicantly between the different kinds of respondents who

claimed to have knowledge in wetland ecology (ANOVA, not
signicant).
3.1.3. Relation between the perceptions of wetland aesthetics and
healthiness
Perceptions of wetland aesthetics and healthiness were strongly
correlated, both for lay-people (r2 0.93) and self-identied experts (r2 0.95) (Fig. 4).
Since perceptions of wetland aesthetics and healthiness were
highly structured by both trophic and visual parameters (Fig. 4A
and B), it was necessary to better understand the basis for these
perceptions. Do experts and lay-people form their judgement according to the same criteria? We therefore sought to understand
what people see when they look at water by analysing the words
they used in order to describe photographs of water.
3.2. Content analysis of perceptions
3.2.1. Comparison of self-identied expert and lay perceptions
Approximately 5000 words were collected and classied into 57
classes of words, belonging more generally to ve categories
(Fig. 5):
1. Objects within aquatic scenes (aquatic vegetation, dead wood,
sediments.).
2. Ecological or geomorphologic processes as understood by
expert knowledge on the environment (eutrophication, sedimentation, armouring.).
3. Sensory reactions resulting from visual, olfactory or tactile
experiences
(clarity/opacity,
luminosity,
homogeneity/
contrast, temperature, odour.).
4. Emotions induced by aquatic scenes (beauty, mystery, sadness,
surprise.).
5. Activities suggested by aquatic scenes (shing, bathing.).
Fig. 5 shows the proportion of categories that were used by selfidentied experts and lay-people to qualify aquatic scenes. Experts
and lay-people mentioned equivalent numbers of terms in referring to objects composing aquatic scenes, or to sensory reactions
resulting from sensory experience (ANOVA, not signicant;
p 0.41 and 0.14 respectively). However, the terms differed for
other categories. Lay-people used emotive terms to characterize
these environments far more often than did experts: words
belonging to the category emotions caused by aquatic scenes
represent 28% and 18% of the terms mentioned by lay-people and
experts respectively (ANOVA, p < 0.001). Conversely, experts
described wetlands using a greater number of terms, relating to the
ecological or geomorphologic processes category than did laypeople (23% of the terms for experts and 11% for lay-people,
ANOVA test, p < 0.001). Two different behaviours tend to distinguish lay-people from experts. Lay people readily used emotions to
characterize the environments, whereas experts preferred relying
on cognition: to the extent the tools provided to them allow it, they
tried to describe what they saw by linking the image to the environmental status or processes they know.

Fig. 3. Plots of the wetlands health scores (mean value and 95% condence interval)
classied according to the trophic class and the type of self-identied experts.

3.2.2. Relationships between the perceptions of lay-people and

actual environmental attributes
A multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) was conducted on
the cumulated occurrences of each of the 57 classes of words
mentioned by lay-people for each photograph in order to link the
physical characteristics of waterbodies with the perceptions laypeople associate to them. Fig. 6aec plot the 16 photographs on
the factorial map (F1  F2) resulting from the MCA. Three groups of

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M. Cottet et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 128 (2013) 1012e1022

Fig. 4. Two-variable scatterplot of aesthetic and health scores (mean value) of each photographed aquatic wetland.

waterbodies were identied, each of them being associated with

specic classes of words.

The rst group (D, N, P, K and F photographs) corresponded to
waterbodies evoking a high ecological value, since they were
judged as having high biodiversity and suffering little ecological damage (classes of words 6, 4 and 38). These environments
were perceived as highly natural and alive (classes of words
50 and 57). They evoked a wide diversity of emotions, from
beauty to cheerfulness, lightness or tidiness (classes of words
42, 47, 48 and 49). These characteristics made them rare and

exceptional environments according to the lay respondents.

This rst group corresponded to waterbodies with submerged
aquatic vegetation, and an oligotrophic to mesotrophic status.
They were positively assessed from an aesthetic point-of-view.

The second group (A, L, B, I, M, E and O photographs) consisted
in habitats considered as damaged and polluted (item 9 and 5),
with bad sensory associations (unpleasant odour or touch
sensation) (classes of words 23 and 26). The poor transparency,
brown-coloured water, and presence of deposits on the water
surface induced unpleasant emotions: unattractiveness,
danger, untidiness, dirtiness and even disgust (classes of words
41, 45, 46 and 52). This second group corresponded either to
reective waterbodies or to those with oating vegetation.
They were perceived as of poor or moderate aesthetic value.

Regarding the third group (G, C, H and J photographs), respondents mentioned the shallow depth (class of words 19)
and the sediment, whether ne or coarse (classes of words 20,
21 and 22), which caused a dominant grey tonality (class of
words 30), and produced a sensation of sadness and monotony
(class of words 55). Participants perceived the mineral character of the waterbodies rather negatively, since they considered that there was nothing to see (class of words 15). They
associated such habitats with a low biodiversity and an absence
of life (classes of words 3 and 56). Finally, a feeling of
commonness or simplicity was mentioned (class of words 54).
This third group corresponded to habitats with high water
transparency and visible substrate. The aesthetic value was
considered as moderate.

4. Discussion
4.1. Perception of aesthetics is strongly inuenced by visual
attributes of wetlands

Fig. 5. Word categories mentioned by people for characterizing the most and least
appreciated wetlands from an aesthetic point of view.

The study demonstrated that peoples perceptions of wetland

aesthetics depend strongly on visual criteria, with lay-people and
self-identied experts being equally inuenced by these parameters. Certain attributes of wetlands inuenced perceptions in

M. Cottet et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 128 (2013) 1012e1022

1019

Fig. 6. MCA of the 57 classes of words used by lay-people for describing photographs of wetlands. The 16 letters correspond to the 16 photographs, each of them being characterized according to its aesthetic mean score (a), its trophic
class (b) and its visual class (c). The gure d is the (F1  F2) factor map of the 57 classes of words.

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M. Cottet et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 128 (2013) 1012e1022

particular. These included transparency and water colour, the

presence and look of aquatic vegetation, and the presence of
sediment in aquatic habitats. These results appear to be in accordance with, and complementary to, previously published scientic
results.

capture inuences on social perceptions and ecological functioning

and this was validated.

4.1.1. Water colour and transparency

Clear waters have been shown to be aesthetically preferred
(Gregory and Davis, 1993), or judged as better quality (House and
Sangster, 1991). Water is perceived as of high aesthetic value or of
good quality when visibility is greater than a threshold corresponding to approximately 1 m (Smith and Davies-Colley, 1992).
The strong impact of transparency on perception explains why the
trophic status, which is strongly correlated with transparency in
the photograph set, inuenced the perception of aesthetic value to
such a degree. Transparency is also correlated to water colour
(Moser, 1984; Smith and Davies-Colley, 1992), which is itself related
to the concentration of suspended solids or phytoplankton and to
substances dissolved in the water (e.g., humic acids that colour the
water in dark brownered). The colour of the water, as well as its
transparency, is a key parameter for peoples perception: considering a red/yellow/green/blue colour gradient, water has been
judged to be of aesthetic value only from the greeneyellow tonality
through to blue (Smith and Davies-Colley, 1992). The present results, which highlight a strong aesthetic preference for transparent
waters and a strong rejection of brown waters, conrm these previous conclusions. Moreover, we showed that transparency and
water colour, evoking either tidiness or dirtiness to lay-people, are
often interpreted respectively as good or bad environmental states.

Self-identied experts and lay-people are sensitive to the same

visual and ecological criteria. Their perception is therefore very
similar, conrming previous scientic results (Green and Tunstall,
1992; House and Sangster, 1991; Junker and Buchecker, 2008;
Mosley, 1989). Moreover, for both lay people and experts, survey
results regarding perception of aesthetics and healthiness were
strongly correlated. This observation is to be expected for laypeople, whose lack of expert ecological knowledge prevents them
from accurately assessing an ecosystems health by using purely
ecological criteria. Indeed, lay-people closely associated aesthetics
to health and tidiness. Previous studies also underlined that an
environment is judged to be attractive if it is perceived as neat,
clean and well-maintained (Gobster et al., 2007; Nassauer, 1992).
Thus, perception associated with the aesthetics and health of
wetlands is consistent with traditional schemes of social representations in Western culture (Eco, 2007): there is an intrinsic link
noted between the categories. A more surprising result of the study
is that the same link is observed for experts.
Self-identied experts have ecological knowledge (this group
was dened according to this criteria) and were assumed to assess
the quality of wetlands using ecological criteria that were presumably somewhat independently of aesthetics. However, the
health of waterbodies appears to be determined by trophic status
for both lay-people and experts. This observation is surprising since
trophic status is a functional criterion of wetlands but is not directly
representative of their health. Indeed, even though human activities frequently cause eutrophication of wetlands, eutrophication is
not always a sign of alteration, and may be an ecologically normal
situation for some wetlands. In such situations, a eutrophic wetland
may be in good health from a functional point of view. For example,
wetlands located downstream along a river continuum, in a
temperate European or North American context, are expected to be
eutrophic, whereas a site located upstream along the same river
may not be. Such results may suggest that self-identied experts
underuse ecological knowledge about wetlands. However, the
other results of the survey show the converse: experts refer to
ecological processes in assessing environments. Furthermore, they
tend to highly rate oligotrophic wetlands as compared to laypeople. Their judgements thus appear to be more inuenced than
lay-people by the trophic status of aquatic environments. There is
therefore a difference in perceptions as caused by environmental
knowledge.
Two interpretations may explain these results. Firstly, the experts may systematically associate eutrophic situations with a high
degree of water pollution, without positioning this ecological
characteristic within a functional framework. Such behaviour may
be due to the type of knowledge experts have. It is possible that
they have minimal knowledge about functional ecology and landscape ecology, or that their professional activity is focused on other
issues such as water quality assessment in the context of the impact
of human activities on ecosystems. Secondly, these perceptions
may be due to biases in the survey. Experts had to assess the health
of environments from photographs. This medium may have provided insufcient information regarding the geographic and climatic context, for experts to reach an accurate professional decision
on environmental health. Their assessment may have assumed the
most common situation by default, and so therefore assumed
eutrophic situations to be related to pollution. This methodological
issue might have led to more commonality in the apparent

4.1.2. Presence and appearance of vegetation

Scientic literature has so far been rather ambiguous about the
inuence of aquatic vegetation on perception. Macrophytes may
either positively inuence (Steinwender et al., 2008), or both
positively and negatively inuence (Moser, 1984), perception of
aesthetics and water quality. The present study expanded on previous results by assessing the perceived aesthetic value of various
kinds of aquatic vegetation. In our survey, oating vegetation living
in nutrient-rich wetlands was perceived as having no aesthetic
value, whereas submerged vegetation living in nutrient-poor
wetlands was judged as having aesthetic value.
4.1.3. Presence of sediments
Few studies highlight the role of substrate on peoples perception. Two studies dealing with the perception of braided rivers
highlighted the negative perception of sediment deposits (Bulut
and Yilmaz, 2009), and evoked a river bed designed with a bulldozer (Cossin, 2008). The present results underline the strong
negative impacts of unvegetated substrate (either ne or coarse) on
aesthetic perceptions.

4.2. Nutrient level, a parameter which can capture inuences on

social perceptions and ecological functioning
Nutrient level has also been shown to inuence the perceptions
of wetland aesthetics and healthiness by lay-people and selfdeclared experts. The visual impact of this ecological parameter
(water transparency, composition of plant communities.) is very
strong since it had a greater inuence on the scores given to the
photographs than did the other visual parameters. It also caused
intense emotions such as cheerfulness and a sense of tidiness for
oligotrophic waterbodies, whereas dirtiness and disgust was
registered for eutrophic waterbodies. Our research hypothesis
stated that we could identify ecological parameters which can

4.3. A slight difference in the perception of self-identied experts

and lay-people

M. Cottet et al. / Journal of Environmental Management 128 (2013) 1012e1022

perception of experts and lay-people than is really the case. Further

research would enable an exploration of this question.
Conversely, the way we dened the population of experts (a
self-reported knowledge of wetlands ecology) apparently does not
explain the similarity of expert and lay-people perceptions. Our
results show no signicant difference in the healthiness perceptions of the different types of self-identied experts (i.e. students,
managers, scientists.), despite their heterogeneous levels of
expertise. Students and experienced scientists provided broadly
similar results.
4.4. What are the prospects for the future of wetland management?
While there is a need to expand on the results concerning
perception of wetland healthiness by experts, the results concerning
lay-people are far clearer. By linking aesthetics and health, lay people
perceive higher ecological value for oligotrophic wetlands lower
ecological value for the eutrophic ones. This trend may be prejudicial
for biodiversity conservation if people tend to consider such
naturally-occurring eutrophic wetlands as degraded or altered.
There is therefore a need to diffuse information to lay-people in
order to explain that even if eutrophic environments are unpleasant from an aesthetic point of view, they may have real ecological
value, depending on their ecological functioning. If eutrophic
wetlands were better known, these ecosystems could be more
sustainably and efciently managed. The implementation of an
integrative and participative management scheme for wetland
ecosystems relies on such knowledge (Blandin and Bergandi, 2000)
and, therefore, on education.
However, it is widely known that information has a weak inuence on perception, since environmental quality is not judged
only according to cognitive criteria, but also according to emotional
ones. If validated, this hypothesis may encourage the integration of
aesthetic objectives into ecosystem management projects
(Nassauer et al., 2001), designing landscapes in a way that better
correspond to familiar aesthetic values, and aligning aesthetic and
ecological goals more closely (Gobster et al., 2007). Such initiatives
have already been attempted for wetlands: in Phalen Wetland Park
(St. Paul, Minnesota), wetlands which were not widely valued by
the public were planted in visibly banded patterns and the edges of
pathways were mown (Nassauer, 1995). Such signs of human care
are widely appreciated (Gobster et al., 2007; Nassauer, 1992).
Naturally-occurring eutrophic wetlands, perceived by lay-people as
dirty and untidy, may be seen as more attractive thanks to such
interventions.
5. Conclusion
This research has shown that different parameters structure
environmental perceptions of lay-people and self-identied experts. In the case of riverine wetlands, transparency and water
colour, presence and appearance of aquatic vegetation, presence of
sediments and nally, nutrient level appear to strongly impact
perception. This result is very positive for the management of
riverine wetlands: it proves that it is possible to identify shared
parameters that relate ecological functioning to social perceptions
of ecosystems. Such parameters facilitate the work of managers in
dening integrative objectives for preservation or restoration projects since they provide a synthetic view of the environment. The
inuence of these parameters is so strong that it should be possible
to consider modelling environmental perceptions based on physical parameters of environments, whether they are visual or
ecological. Some scientic studies have already investigated this
eld (Le Lay et al., 2012). Nevertheless, such a modelling exercise
would be a generalization and could not replace a local approach. It

1021

is important to enter into dialogue with all stakeholders in order to

understand and consider the variability in peoples perceptions.
Expert perceptions appear to be more inuenced by ecological
parameters than do the perceptions of lay-people: the differences
primarily relate to the value assigned to oligotrophic water. The
impact of knowledge is therefore real and cannot be neglected
when dening objectives for environmental projects. Nevertheless,
the difference in perception between lay and expert populations is
minimal. Both groups are inuenced by the same visual and
ecological parameters. That conrms that environmental perception strongly depends on cultural framework: perceptions of people belonging to a common culture are widely shared. That
produces a common basis for dialogue and, hopefully, for implementing integrative and participative ecosystem management.
Acknowledgements
We thank the anonymous referees for their very helpful comments. We are grateful to the University of Lyon (Jean Moulin Lyon
3) as well as the LTER-ZABR for funding and supporting this
research. Thank you to Dr. Anne Rivire-Honegger who comanaged the PhD of Marylise Cottet. Thanks also to Dr. Wesley
Lauer for his very valuable comments and his linguistic support.
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