Groundwater management in France

Abstract

Groundwater, like other extensive natural and renewable resources, easily accessible and, at the same time, vulnerable, has to be managed so as to reconcile the unique resource with its many users, and its long-term preservation with short-term utilization requirements. Under the natural, legal, and economic conditions prevailing in France, where groundwater constitutes a large part of water production and resources, where there are tens of thousands of economic developers and users of a few hundred natural groundwater management units, such management concerns these users as well as the public and collective authorities that control the users' activities for the common present and future good of all. Legislative, financial, and educational means are applied simultaneously to preserve and protect the quality and quantily of the groundwater and at times to encourage its use and stimulate its development.