When Allotment Gardens Become Urban Green Spaces Like Others, Providing Cultural Ecosystem Services

International audienceDifferent kind of nature can be observed in urban settings: forest or semi-natural spaces, ornamental gardens and allotment gardens (community gardens). Our article focuses on the last ones and questions some ecosystem services they offer, in order to know if they are urban green spaces like others. This study comes in the framework of the research program SERVEUR (funded by the French Centre-Val de Loire region), which is interested in the services given by urban green spaces. Here we set out one case-study, the Bergeonnerie allotments in Tours (France). To identify the services these allotments offer, we conducted: - in situ observations and surveys of Bergeonnerie allotments users, - interviews of some municipal stakeholders and decision-makers of several cities of the region Centre-Val de Loire. The in situ study revealed that allotments offered not only provisioning services – according to the MEA [1] ecosystem services list, in this case food. They also provide cultural services, becoming a source of well-being for the gardeners but not only. We could observe that some other people come in these green spaces, like in other ones, to walk. They are places of sociability and education, what the municipal stakeholders and decision-makers confirm. Allotments give more benefits for the population than expected; they are more than places used to cultivate vegetables