France, like many other countries in Europe this summer, has been hit by a succession of extreme heatwaves in which temperatures across the country, from south to north, have reached in excess of 40° Celsius.
Compounding the situation is a long drought, which began last winter, and which has dried up rivers and left underground water reserves depleted. This has resulted in massive, ongoing wildfires, reducing crop yields, lowering and heating rivers, and forcing the closure of several nuclear and hydroelectric power plants around the country.
This July in France was the driest of any year since the national French meteorological service, Météo France, began keeping records on the phenomenon in 1958. Restrictions on water usage have been introduced in nearly all of mainland France’s 96 départements, administrative areas equivalent to counties, and well over 100 municipalities have run out of drinking water, which has had to be delivered to them in trucks.
While this year’s conditions have been exceptional, the rise in temperatures, and periods of drought subsequent to poor rainfall over successive years, point to an alarming trend for the future.
To explore the reasons for the crisis in water reserves and supply, and the possible long-term remedies, Mediapart turned to French hydrologist Emma Haziza, founder and head of Mayane, a private research centre which advises on policies for the prevention and management of droughts and flooding, and who, in this interview with Amélie Poinssot, argues for a radical change of vision in agricultural and urban planning.
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Mediapart: What is the reason for the record drought we have had this summer, and in what way does it differ from heatwaves?
Emma Haziza: There are three types of droughts. Meteorological drought, which is an absence of rain, a dryness of the ground, and the drying up of water masses, meaning the ebbing away of the ground water, water courses, lakes and so on. These three phenomena are today combined, everywhere [in France].
What is particular this year is that 2022 comes after a period in which we have already broken historic records every year, but in different ways according to the areas. From 2017 to 2020, we saw extreme temperatures and droughts in several regions. But in general, there was a good refilling of the [phreatic] table water during the winter; this was even in excess, up to 30 percent more, which meant that the spring could be approached with equanimity.
That’s not the case this year. Since I began following the phenomena of droughts, in 2003, I have never seen such a lack of winter refill. 1976 is the only comparable year. We could see it already in March, there was hardly any rain this winter, and the lack of rainfall continued into spring – to which was added the heatwaves of June and July, an aggravating parameter for the drying up [of the country].
This situation requires us to reflect on our usages of water. There will be conflicts, that’s for sure. Take the case of the Serre-Ponçon lake, in the Hautes-Alpes [in south-east France]. Windsurfers and campers go there in the summer, but, with its dam, it also supplies a hydroelectric plant along with agricultural production further below. EDF [Utility firm and plant operator] halted [hydroelectric] production in the spring in order to keep water in the lake [editor’s note, the lake’s water level has in August fallen to 13 metres below its usual level].
Water is needed for agriculture, energy, drinking water and industry. But also for living environments, about which nobody talks except for biodiversity specialists. If the cake is ever smaller, we cannot stay at the same level of water consumption. It’s a question of society.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
Mediapart: Should we rethink the usage of water for agriculture, and which accounts for 45 percent of water consumption in France?
E.H.: That’s right. It must be understood that it’s not climate change that creates the drought, even if it accentuates it with the rise in temperatures. The vulnerability of our soil and its difficulty in retaining water are principally linked to the manner in which we have for years mistreated it. With labouring, with chemical products, we have destroyed micro-organisms in the soil, whereas it needs life to be able to capture carbon and retain water.
Between 1960 and 1990 in France, 50 percent, and in some place 80 percent, of ponds and humid zones [wetlands] have been destroyed. Humid zones constitute reservoirs which allow rain and dew to be renewed. The earth no longer breathes because it hasn’t enough water in the first layers of soil.
This drying out has notably occurred very much in the Landes [département, in south-west France]. There was fear about [vegetation] diseases, it was believed that drying out was sounder, and then there was the need to increase agricultural zones, to artificialize the ground. There was no awareness of the small cycles of water. Water is not one big cycle, like one learns at school.
Mediapart: What do you mean by ‘small cycles of water’?
E.H.: Water makes micro-looping cycles. For example, in France we have an entrance of humidity along the Atlantic region, which then generates rainfall. When water falls, two-thirds of it evaporates, or is carried away by the wind – that rain then falls further away. Rain that falls over Brest [in north-west France] allows rain to fall in Strasbourg [north-east France].
But we are in the process of losing cycles of rain generated from the earth, because there is no longer this receptacle of the humid zones [wetlands] on the ground, which allow a regeneration of this evaporation. Rain comes from the ground, it doesn’t come from above. When there is no longer any vegetation and humid zones [wetlands] on the ground, there’s no more rain.
If there is a climate change on a global scale, there are also climate changes generated by humans on a small scale. Agricultural activity is a part of these phenomena.
Mediapart: What can be done to preserve these small water cycles? How can new droughts be avoided?
E.H.: The only solution is to let water penetrate into the ground, and not to extract it, as some want to do [editor’s note: the collection of water from the phreatic zone and rain in so-called mega-basins for agricultural use ]. The more that we fill up natural reservoirs, the more we protect and support our rivers, the more we support the living environment. It is a virtuous circle.
When water is extracted from the ground, however, it is put back into the atmosphere, which destabilises atmospheric fluxes, and the risk of subsidence is increased. That is what is happening in California, where roads are sinking by 30 centimetres each year.
Mediapart: Some crops, for example maize, nevertheless need a lot of water and depend upon basins to be watered. Should we stop producing certain types of cereals?
E.H.: Maize was considered to be like gold after the war. It was hyper-profitable production which allowed for [farmers to receive] hefty bonuses. A whole lot of outlets were found for it [maize], with starch for paper production and cosmetics, and animal feed.
But maize is a tropical Graminae which does not have deep roots and can only be nourished with water at surface level, which requires irrigation. It is also a plant which needs water at a moment when there is less of it. It has to be watered, by taking water from the phreatic zone or rivers, up until the middle of August. We can’t continue like that.
I understand the necessity for farmers to continue with their economic activity, but we have European [Union] funds to help with the reconversion of land, with beginning new production. This money should be used to better adapt ourselves, not to smother the system and drain our phreatic zones. Morocco, today, has to desalinate water in order to be able to continue to irrigate, which consumes energy enormously. We mustn’t end up with that.
One avenue for stopping with maize is sorghum. It is a plant that loves heat and which doesn’t need much water.
We must reinvent our agriculture, give it a meaning and take back the power on our land. Farmers themselves are both the victims of, and responsible for, what is happening. Some, who depend upon big companies above them, don’t even choose what they grow; 70 percent of agricultural land [in France] is devoted to [producing] animal feed. We should be asking ourselves questions about this system.
Mediapart: How can the water in phreatic zones, which have been depleted ever since the winter, be brought back to proper levels?
E.H.: For that there has to be a situation of an area of low pressure which will bring us rain. In reality, with a temperature in the Mediterranean Sea which is 6.5 degrees [Celsius] above the normal, we have a thermic anomaly which could provoke major storms in the autumn, when the sea will be in contact with cold air. Torrential rainfall could come about in October or November, even December. That’s what happened with the heatwave in 2003. The regions around [the southern French towns of] Nîmes and Montpellier were subjected to a disastrous episode, the first to be classified [by France’s meteorological services] with a “red vigilance” alert.
Now that we know all that, we must be prepared. To put cofferdams [of a type used as flooding protection] on the doors in zones liable to flooding, set up refuge zones to protect houses, subscribe to danger alert systems. All of the Mediterranean region is at risk of danger. Our clouds are more and more dangerous.
Nevertheless, such rainfall will not refill the phreatic zones. It will devastate everything in its path, with massive streaming, and then leave back to the sea carrying all the pollutants it came across along the way.
Over recent years, 50 percent of devastated properties were hit by water streaming outside of zones liable to flooding.
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- The original transcript of this interview in French, and the accompanying article, can be found here.
English version by Graham Tearse