SHARE
COPY LINK

CLIMATE CRISIS

How France plans to minimise future droughts

The 2022 drought is already the worst in 60 years, but these exceptional events are predicted to become more common, so France is considering long-term solutions to deal with punishingly dry periods.

How France plans to minimise future droughts
(Photo: Fabrice Coffrini / AFP)

Recent headlines in drought-ridden France have made for sobering news: “More than 100 French villages without tap water in ‘unprecedented’ drought”; “‘Water will run out in 25 days’ – Corsica imposes strict new drought restrictions”; “French drought intensifies as River Loire dries up”.

The list goes on.

Environment Minister Christophe Béchu said France has experienced its driest month of July “since 1959”, while Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne activated an interministerial crisis unit to coordinate the resources of the State in the face of the “exceptional drought”.

READ ALSO Ask the expert: Why is France’s drought so bad and what will happen next?

The lack of water is affecting agriculture, food production, France’s famous wine industry, and is stoking tensions between residents and visitors in popular tourist areas.

A senior researcher at the European Drought Observatory told AP on Friday that the current drought affecting large parts of Europe could be worse than the previous one in 2018 – which was so bad that there had been no similar events in the previous 500 years.

And latest weather predictions suggest that drought conditions will continue for up to three months and the ongoing climate crisis means that ‘exceptional’ events such as the 2022 are set to become more regular.

While water restrictions have already been imposed on local authorities to combat the risk of water shortages, are there any long-term plans for protecting France’s water resources?

Companies are looking at ways of concentrating their water use, including by reusing water multiple times where possible, while measures such as trickle irrigation could help reduce water loss in agriculture.

Agroecology, which has been developed over the last few years, is also leading adapted practices on better soil conservation, which could allow water to be better retained.

“We need to accelerate the implementation of these innovative techniques and work on training personnel in the field,” hydrogeologist Marie Pettenati told Franceinfo.

Drinking wastewater

It’s possible. For the past 50 years or so, Namibia has produced a percentage of its drinking water by treating waste water. But it’s not necessarily the first step.

READ ALSO ANALYSIS: Is water likely to be rationed as France’s drought worsens?

A group of farmers in Clermont-Ferrand use water that has passed through the city’s wastewater treatment plant for several years. But schemes like this are highly local and very rare – only a handful exist across the country.

A decree has existed in France allowing the use of treated wastewater for agricultural purposes since 2010, but – with the Clermont-Ferrand exception – is rarely used. The rules and the tools exist. All that remains is to use them.

Groundwater

In total, 62 percent of France’s drinking water is taken from groundwater, according to a Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières study. 

Pettenati said: “We also need to think more deeply about water storage in the ground, which would make it possible to retain resources and make them available for future use. 

“This would mean storing very large volumes of water at times when it is most available (in winter, for example, during periods of heavy rainfall) to be reused later, when it is most needed.”

Treated wastewater could also be stored underground for agricultural use, according to some suggestions.

“Groundwater is an invisible resource. We have trouble understanding how to preserve it, but it is essential,” Pettenati said.

Water reservoirs – often used by farmers – lead to significant losses to evaporation during periods of high temperatures, and risk contamination. 

Moreover, the basins hold a large volume of water in a very localised area, which can have consequences on river levels and impact on wildfire in wetland areas.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

TRAVEL NEWS

Are France’s loss-making regional airports under threat?

Just a quarter of France's airports break even financially with the rest - the smaller, regional airports - heavily subsidised by the state. But can this situation continue?

Are France's loss-making regional airports under threat?

France last year welcomed 199 million airline passengers – bringing the country numbers back to almost pre-pandemic levels. 

But it was only a handful of French airports that took in the vast majority of those millions – with Paris’ Roissy-Charles de Gaulle (CDG) and Orly airports responsible for more than half of the air traffic.

France’s Cour de Comptes counted 73 mainland commercial airports in their 2023 review of the airline sector – but only 15 of those actually break even, the rest rely on subsidies.

Some of these airports are exceedingly small, like Troyes which had just 1,562 passengers in 2023. Others, like Rodez with 31,577 passengers and Castres with 36,454 got a bit more.

Map of airports in France, including both passenger and non-passenger airports (Credit: l’UNION DES AÉROPORTS FRANÇAIS & FRANCOPHONES ASSOCIÉS – UAF & FA)

Limoges was larger, with 264,426 passengers in 2023, but it still paled in comparison to the 10.8 million that passed through the Marseille airport.

The cost of small-to-medium sized airports

The former head of the Air Transport Institute, Jacques Pavaux, authored a 2019 study on public aid to airports, finding that those with less than one million passengers per year are not profitable, noting that only 15 of France’s airports get enough traffic to be profitable.

As for the others, most have been loss-making for years, unable to continue services without significant aid from the state.

“Their chronic deficit has been filled by recurring operating subsidies granted over decades of existence. Almost half of them have never had, and will never have, any chance of reaching the traffic threshold guaranteeing financial balance,” Pavaux wrote. 

The study found that state and local authorities spend around €90 million every year to help keep the small-to-medium sized airports afloat. 

Of the 73 airports listed in the Cour de Comptes report, a little over half (38) counted fewer than 700,000 passengers a year. 

The Cour de Comptes called these “the most economically fragile”, noting that they depend on aid from local authorities to balance operations and carry out the necessary investments.

On top of that, many do not have negotiation options and find themselves competing with neighbouring airports, leaving them forced to take on contracts with low-cost airlines. 

As of 2021, low-cost air traffic represented more than 90 percent of commercial traffic for airports in Dôle, Vatry, Limoges, Bergerac, Nîmes, while it constituted all of the traffic at the Carcassonne, Tours and Béziers airports.

Over-density of airports

Some areas stand out for having a particularly high volume of commercial passenger airports, like Occitanie along the Mediterranean coast in southern France, which is home to nine.

The Cour de Comptes report found that in Occitanie 71.5 percent of regional airport traffic occurred at the Toulouse airport, followed by Montpellier with 14.4 percent.

The other seven – Carcassone, Tarbes, Perpignan, Nîmes, Béziers, Rodez and Castres – combined provided the remaining 14 percent of traffic. 

Valérie Renet, the head of the Occitanie Regional Chamber of Accounts, told France 3 that it is this ‘over-density’ that leads to financial losses, as “operating deficits are covered by public subsidies, that is to say that taxpayers’ money is used to balance the operation of these airports, usually for the benefit of low-cost companies.”

Last year, the airport of Bézers, which is “totally dependent on Ryanair”, received €5.1 million in public money to reach equilibrium, which equates to about €20.69 paid out per passenger, France Bleu reported. 

As for Ryanair, the company benefits from over €30 million in public subsidies – or €16 per passenger – from regional airports in Occitanie alone.

The picture is similar in Brittany, which is home to eight airports, though over 80 percent of traffic is concentrated in Brest, which has a little over one million passengers a year (as of 2018).

The future for small-to-medium sized airports

Building new airports has already become controversial – a proposal for a new airport at Notre-Dame-des-Landes near the city of Nantes was the subject of huge protests for years until in 2018 the project was officially abandoned.

But that doesn’t mean that the loss-making existing airports are under threat. 

In terms of what to do with the loss-making airports, Renet focused on the situation in Occitanie. She told France 3 that she was “not advocating for getting rid of the airports. They serve other needs specific to the region, not just commercial flights.”

For example, the Nîmes airport is a national hub for air rescue and civil protection operations, meanwhile ‘pelicandromes’ which are used to fight forest fires, are installed at the Béziers, Carcassone and Perpignan airports. 

Instead, Renet and the Cours de Comptes advocated for streamlining the management of airports to a regional, rather than local level. This would help to avoid overlapping flights – like a Pau-Paris and a Tarbes-Paris that take off around the same time.

The situation may also change in 2027, when the European Commission is due to examine public aid given to airports and whether large subsidies given to airports constitutes unfair competition.

There are also climate concerns, as France moves to invest more train transport to reduce carbon emissions. In 2021, the country passed a law banning domestic air links of less than two hours and 30 minutes when an alternative train option exists.

However, this law has so far only banned three routes: Orly-Bordeaux, Orly-Lyon, and Orly-Nantes.

SHOW COMMENTS