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The main focus of this paper is on a study of environmental perceptions in the municipality of Aveiro, Portugal.

The study draws pn complaints regarding environmental matters submitted to the City Council and on a critical analysis of the results in comparison with the opinions of local government authorities and non‐governmental organisations, which have responsibilities for local environmental management, and experts.

The results reflect the local actors relevant to the protests, including, among these citizens and local authorities, the main concerns intrinsic to the complaints and questionnaire responses, such as those relating to urban solid waste, water, air pollution, noise and unhealthy lots; and the “preferential zones” in which environmental problems are most likely to generate complaints, more specifically the dense urban areas and, to a lesser extent, the classified natural areas, and the preferential zones for the occurrence of environmental problems in the opinion of the respondents, namely the hydrographical nets and associated margins and the rural or sparse areas. The respondents were also encouraged to identify measures required to solve the local environmental problems, revealing a great range of suggested procedures, from educational to coercive types.

There are few studies concerning complaints on environmental issues and a comparison of these data with the perceptions of local decision‐makers and experts offers a useful route to the characterisation and evaluation of local environmental concerns, identifying the most significant environmental problems within the study area. Proper management of this information can positively influence the decision‐making processes, allowing a more directed and efficient performance on the part of local government.

The purpose of this paper is to focus on the relevance of citizen complaints as a new source of information for local environmental governance. It represents an initial attempt to construct a fresh approach to the field.

The paper comprises a brief literature review around the concept of environmental governance, the role played by institutions, and the challenges of local environmental governance; an empirical study of a Portuguese municipality based on environmental complaints submitted to its City Council and a comparative analysis between the results garnered from the empirical study and the areas of intervention in the Municipal Environmental Plan.

The results suggest that the information gathered from public complaints on environmental issues has the potential to reveal the most significant environmental problems from the standpoint of local actors. This knowledge is relevant for self‐evaluation by local authorities whilst remaining a promising avenue for local public participation in decision‐making processes.

The authors take the view that concerns raised by local populations are important, latent sources of information that can have a positive impact on delineating necessary action for the management and resolution of local environmental problems.