Gestion locale de l’eau et changement climatique : des outils apportés par le projet européen LIFE Eau&Climat

Abstract

Adaptation to climate change is an important and now recognised issue in the sustainable management of water resources. The adaptation of territories at local level is essential, in addition to actions at basin, national and European levels. This is the main objective of the LIFE Eau&Climat project, which started on 1 September 2020 and involves 14 scientific, technical and territorial partners. This 4-year project is co-financed by the European Commission, the French water agencies and Ademe. It aims to enable local water management stakeholders – the SAGE (schéma d’aménagement et de gestion des eaux) structures and their CLE (commissions locales de l’eau)- – to assess the effects of climate change on their territories, to take them into account in their planning tools and to implement adaptation measures despite the existing uncertainties. To achieve this result, three strategic objectives have been defined: 1) to mobilise stakeholders by raising their awareness of climate change issues in order to promote the emergence of local dynamics (guide, recommendations and testimonies) and by providing them with suitable tools to enable them to assess the vulnerabilities of their territory and to plan adaptation trajectories, 2) improve access to data on climate change and its impacts on water (DRIAS-Eau portal) and 3) accelerate the transfer of knowledge between researchers and managers in order to optimise the appropriation of scientific results (white paper on the conditions for hydro-climatic modelling at the local scale). As the project is ongoing, the aim here is to present a few examples of the actions carried out on the 21 SAGEs involved in the project, and to inform all the other French SAGEs of the tools and guides that have been developed or are in the process of being developed and which could be useful to them.