What waterway do we call the water tower of Provence? The Rhône ? The Sorgue? No, it is the Durance which supplies water to 3 million inhabitants. We talk about it on the occasion of world water day. The Durance river has its source in the Alps, in Briançon and flows into the Rhône south of Avignon. 323 kilometers long, it crosses all of Provence: Sisteron, Manosque and the South of Vaucluse.
The Durance brings most of the water resources in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur region. It irrigates 80,000 hectares of agricultural land and represents 60,000 tourist jobs. Today, the challenge is to protect the river in the face of a major danger: the climate crisis. The Durance and its waters are a very precious resource. But the deregulation of the climate makes it difficult to answer a bunch of questions.
The Durance in the face of the climate crisis
Will global warming dry up the Durance in some places? Will it rain enough to compensate? Will farmers have enough water to irrigate their crops? The SMAVD, a mixed union of the Durance, tries to answer these questions with a tool called CRPO. Yes, like in Star Wars. C3PO is not a very talkative golden droid but a digital model that will allow plan several water management scenarios. This model should make it possible to avoid future conflicts and to share water between everyone: inhabitants, farmers, tourists and industries. All this of course while protecting our environment and the Durance.
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