Last Saturday, clashes broke out between police and protesters in Sainte-Oline, in Deux-Sèvres, in western France. Several thousand demonstrators expressed their dissatisfaction with the project to build a “mega-basin”, a water reservoir intended for agriculture. The Saint-Soline site is part of a project of 16 water reservoirs of several hundred thousand cubic meters of water, developed by a group of 400 farmers with the aim of reducing their withdrawals for irrigation during the winter. ‘summer.
Do these “mega-basins” of water threaten the environment? Interview with Bernard Barraqué, emeritus research director at the CNRS, water policy specialist at Cired. Author of Sustainable management of urban water – Observations and France-Brazil exchangeseditions Quae.