O arroio, a rua, o verde e a vida: cartografia do caminhar nas bordas do arroio Pepino

Abstract

The rivers and streams that cross the cities correspond to structural elements of the landscape and are, in most cases, considered as limits for the expansion of the urban environment. A differentiated and complex territory, center of environmental urban conflicts. The urban river and the city are mutated and intertwined landscapes and it is necessary to take a look at the contemporary city that considers the interrelationship between the instances of the urban environment and the natural environment. The fragility of natural resources must be seen as an opportunity to investigate new possibilities, seeking an additional dimension for understanding the city. Thus, through the approximation of theories of ecological urbanism and the philosophy of difference, the research intends to carry out a study on the edges of the Pepino stream in the city of Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul, with the general objective of analysing the use of free spaces on the margins of the stream to make the relations established between the social and natural environment on these margins sayable. The method adopted consists of cartography, using walking as the main procedure. The discoveries about the spaces covered point to the existence of three plateaus, regions of different intensities that generate, mainly, forces of repulsion in the high course of the stream and attraction in the low course, while in its middle portion these forces coexist. The research highlights the relevance of the issues discovered through cartography, indicating clues as to how interactions between people and the natural environment remaining on wet edges affect the possibilities of use in these territories.