• The government has launched “the first brick of ecological planning” by tackling the water issue.

  • If the main measures will have to be "decided at the end of this year or at the very beginning of 2023", the Minister in charge of the Ecological Transition has not ruled out restrictions on the use of water from November to preserve the summer. .

After a scorching summer marked by "an unprecedented drought", which saw 117 municipalities be deprived of water, the government intends to launch major maneuvers to avoid reviving the same situation.

"We made a commitment that there would be a before and after summer 2022", introduced Christophe Béchu, the Minister for Ecological Transition from Marseille, where he launched the first of 22 ecological planning projects.

This is all the more so since this past summer “risks being the matrix of future summers”, noted the minister.

Dedicated to water, this "first brick of ecological planning is a symbol" of an object around which the concern was strong this summer.

If the main measures will have to be “decided at the end of this year or at the very beginning of 2023”, the minister gave his orientations.

Among which possible "restrictions of use [of water] which would be taken in November, December, January to avoid finding themselves in the stress of that of the month of May", announced the minister making echoing a decree issued on July 30, which allows the level of low water levels to be monitored outside of summer.

Hydropower at its lowest this winter

Another consequence of this summer's droughts, the government “anticipates a winter where we will not have a level of hydroelectric production comparable to that of other years”.

About thirty hydroelectric power stations and mini-power stations, the first source of production from renewable energies in France, are distributed in Provence along the Durance, the Verdon and the Provence canal.

Added to this are the concerns of maintenance of nuclear power plants and gas supply, in the context of the energy crisis that we are experiencing.

“We will have to learn to do as much with less,” warned Christophe Béchu about water resources.

The "green fund" announced at the end of August for communities and endowed with 1.5 billion euros should make it possible to hunt for energy sieves, water leaks (estimated at 20% but with strong territorial disparities) and to finance, for example, “soil dewatering” so that rainwater does not escape immediately into the wastewater circuit.

Wastewater that the government would also like to see reused, an idea that remains to be developed and implemented, like, at this stage, all the ecological planning measures.

Planet

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Economy

The drought in France is expected to cost between 1.6 and 2.4 billion euros in 2022

  • Planet

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  • Ecology

  • Drought

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  • Provence