The Minister for Ecological Transition Christophe Béchu, who brought together the basin coordinating prefects on Monday evening to discuss the unprecedented winter drought in France, called on them to issue water restriction orders “from now on” to anticipate possible situations of crisis during the summer.
The minister invited these prefects, who drive state policy in terms of water management, “not to have a shaking hand to issue decrees”, saying he was “alarmed” by the deficit of water in the soil.
Last summer, “we had up to 700 municipalities affected by drinking water problems. If we do not take measures upstream, we run the risk of having an even higher figure next summer and over larger territories “with larger agglomerations concerned, he warned.
An unprecedented drought
France has been suffering from an unprecedented drought for several weeks, following a year 2022 that was already particularly poor in rainfall. Over the last 18 months, 15 have been loss-making. Between January 21 and February 21, the metropolis did not experience any real rain. The aggregate rainfall total being less than 1 mm daily, i.e. for 32 days, the longest period “since the start of the measurements in 1959”, Météo-France announced on Wednesday.
“I have no difficulty explaining to the prefects that you have to be alarmed,” Béchu told AFP. In three regions, “Occitanie, Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and the southern region”, indicated the Minister, “the level of soil humidity corresponds to that normally observed at the end of May”.
All of the French departments are below normal soil humidity, added Béchu. He therefore asked the prefects to bring together the departmental water resources committees by the end of March to issue restriction orders where necessary. He also wanted to have a “live observatory of the municipalities which are deprived for all or part of drinking water”.
The snow deficit
Christophe Béchu also returned to the lack of snow cover which should translate into “a water deficit in our valleys when the snow melts”. From the “second half of April, the falling water no longer recharges the groundwater as much”, he underlined.
At present, four departments are already on heightened alert: Ain, Isère, Bouches-du-Rhône and Pyrénées-Orientales. A figure that will inevitably climb, warned Christophe Béchu.