For ten years, the Rhône department has experienced increasingly repeated episodes of drought.

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JP Ksiazek / AFP

  • Water tables at their lowest, rain deficit, the Rhône is currently going through a period of drought described as extreme.

  • The years follow and repeat themselves: droughts have been more and more frequent in the department for twenty years.

The years go by and they all look the same.

The Rhône department is currently going through a period of "extreme drought".

As evidenced by the lawns roasted by the sun, even the absence of grass in areas yet provided.

According to the Info Sécheresse site, which compiles the data (rainfall, levels of rivers and groundwater) for each department, the Rhône found itself several weeks in a row this summer in a situation that could almost be described as 'historical.

Understand that we are talking about an episode that can occur “every 50 years”.

No wonder that.

The year 2020 is for the moment one of the least rainy.

"To date, 352.22 millimeters of precipitation has fallen (figure of August 28)", indicates the Rhône prefecture.

Which suggests a record year unless you have a particularly wet autumn.

For comparison, 856 mm of rain fell in 2019, 862 in 2018, 652 in 2017, 900 mm in 2016. Years of drought also.

The level of water tables in decline for six years

As a consequence of the repeated lack of rain, the level of groundwater and rivers is particularly low.

Especially since the situation does not date from yesterday.

“We have observed a downward trend overall since 2014,” explains the Rhône prefecture.

Every year for the past six years, “surface and groundwater levels are not sufficiently recharged during winter periods.

This increases the tensions on all water bodies from spring on, ”we say.

He continued: "The increase in heat wave phenomena with consequences on the drying out of soils, the increase in evapotranspiration and increased water requirements only reinforce the drought phenomenon".

Droughts that repeat themselves over and over again.

If significant episodes were recorded in the 70s, 80s and 90s (1976, 1983, 1986, 1989, 1997), "it is clear that their frequency has been relatively high since the beginning of the 2000s", observes a specialist.

No less than 10 years in 20 years.

2003, the year of the heatwave, will obviously have marked the spirits.

But the trend then accelerated.

Since 2017, the Rhône has experienced continuous drought.

From there to there being an irremediable situation?

"No, if a real policy of resource saving, adaptation of agricultural and industrial sectors to an increasingly scarce resource is put in place", we answer.

The regional prefect, for example, initiated in 2019 a seasonal adjustment of drought management by setting up a departmental water management committee responsible for working on the structural management of water resources.

"We have to hope for precipitation during the winter period and the adhesion of all citizens and economic actors to save and preserve water resources", one concludes in the services of the prefecture.

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