Broad analysis of French priority catchment areas: A step toward adaption of the Water Framework Directive?

Within a context of known and alarming deterioration of water bodies and under pressure from the European Water Framework Directive, in 2009 the French government designated slightly more than 500 priority catchments. In so doing, it declared its objective of concentrating its efforts on these areas, trying out a methodology for action, and proving to the European Union that it was taking action. The present study has documented the on-going situations and actions on these Grenelle catchment areas and identified the broad types of actions and situations as part of a critical analysis of the approach retained by the government. After constructing an analytical framework of these areas, we assembled together a large collection of data to be analyzed with multivariate statistical analysis.These data were either gathered from surveys based on a questionnaire encompassing biophysical, agricultural, social, and economic aspects or based on spatialized statistical data sources. This work demonstrates key factors characterizing the catchment areas: the hydrological entry point for the definition of a field of action involves great variability of territorial size and therefore of the players involved (municipalities, farmers, cooperatives, users). Little attention is given to this aspect in the relatively rigid single legal procedure presently in force. On these catchment areas, we emphasize two main lines of structuring parameters: on the one hand, the relative diversity of land use and forms of agriculture, and on the other, the relative strength of the administrative structure. These results could be useful for those managing these issues in the different government agencies, those implementing the approaches, or local authorities responsible for resource management, as they provide a better understanding of how to adapt these experiments to other areas concerned by water resource issues.