Résumé
Assessing the local scale effects of global changes and share related knowledge with the population may bea key to rural society robustness in the Anthropocene. In line with transdisciplinarity trend, one approachaims to refine knowledge of global change impacts by integrating vernacular knowledge and local observa-tions. However, bridging the gap between theory and practice remains a significant challenge. Living labsare emerging in many regions as a science-society dialogue tool, enabling participatory data collection at alocal scale and analysis that combines scientific knowledge with vernacular expertise.We present experiments from a living-lab in the Cévennes, a Mediterranean mountain rural region in southFrance. Its climate is characterised by summer droughts and a high precipitation variability. Small hy-draulic heritage punctuates the watersheds, reflecting the populations’ adaptation to this variability and thedevelopment of deep vernacular hydrological knowledge. Nowadays, climate change combined to societalmutations (mains water usages and tourism development especially) induces an increasing water scarcity.The region has experimented water scarcity crises in 2017, 2021 and 2022, making hydrology a major localconcern. In this context, the living lab fosters the creation and animation of a inhabitants/scientists coop-eration to propose and experiment water management adapted to the local context.At the current state of this living-lab, the co-collection of data is effective through participatory mappingand participative observation procedure of water flows and biochemistry. This could lead to high resolutiondatabase. However, many questions remain regarding the participatory monitoring that could guaranteelong-term monitoring of relevant and reliable indicators of local-scale effects of global change: Are scientifi-cally relevant indicators the same as those of interest to local inhabitants? How can they be engaged overtime? What measurement tools should be implemented? How should this data be shared? Based on theexperience of this living lab, we will present our results and questioning about the participatory approachesfor global changes monitoring at a local scale and about the inhabitants/critical-zone scientists cooperation.