Stories from the River Lea: community voices shaping understanding of environmental change

Environmental crises are often tracked through technical indicators and institutional data. Yet they are also experienced in everyday life, in how people notice change, remember loss, and care for the environments around them. How might mapping capture these crises not only as physical conditions, but also as lived and social realities?

On 31 January 2026, residents, river users, and local organisations gathered at UCL East for a participatory workshop exploring lived experiences of crisis along the River Lea. The session formed part of the CHRYSES project, an international research collaboration examining how environmental health crises are understood through maps, stories, and community knowledge. Developed with Manifold at UCL Multi Lab, the workshop created space for dialogue between researchers, artists, and local communities.

The workshop was led by Dr Jakleen Al Dalal’a and Dr Artemis Skarlatidou (UCL Geography) in collaboration with visual artist Emma Smith (Manifold), with support from Kate Watson from UCL Cultural and Community Engagement. 

Through conversation and participatory mapping activities, participants reflected on their everyday relationships with the river, shaped by routines such as walking, cycling, boating, and long term residence in the area. Participants highlighted a range of environmental concerns, including oil pollution, visible waste, invasive plant species, and the disappearance of fish in some locations. Many also expressed worries about potential health risks linked to polluted water and a broader sense that river conditions have worsened in recent years. At the same time, they recalled memories of a cleaner river and emphasised its continuing importance for wellbeing, recreation, and connection to place.

Using printed base maps, tracing layers, colour, and annotation, participants mapped sites of pollution alongside spaces of care and attachment. This participatory process brought together different perspectives and demonstrated how community knowledge can help inform conversations about environmental change.

CHRYSES workshops are now taking place across Europe, exploring new ways of engaging communities and institutions in understanding environmental crises. The River Lea workshop marks an early step in this ongoing collaboration between researchers, communities, and local organisations.

Further information about the workshop can be found on the UCL ExCiteS website. 

This work has been supported by CHANSE and HERA CHRYSES, by the Research Council of Finland under Grant Agreement 369388, Research Ireland under Grant Agreement RI4046, by UKRI/AHRC under Grant Agreement UKRI463 and the Estonian Research Council under Grant Agreement 4-8/25/14.