PHyREV - Hydrological Processes for Vulnerables Water Resources

Context :

With regard to future demographic and climatic changes, water resources sustainable management (aquifers, surface water) is one of the major challenges of the next century, particularly in environments where they are rare or difficult to exploit. These resources are located in the Critical Zone. They are particularly vulnerable when they are subject to strong anthropic pressures (withdrawals for irrigation, pollution, land use change, etc.) and/or climatic (insufficient or decreasing recharge, change in rainfall extremes, increased evapotranspiration, change in infiltration and surface humidity). The spatial-temporal dynamics of these resources is conditioned by the spatial distribution of rainfall, but also by the spatial redistribution of water, whether natural (river, underground transfer) or anthropogenic (pumping for conveyance or irrigation). These transfers, the continental part of the water cycle, also condition the hydrological hazard and interactions with the atmosphere.

In this context, the PHyREV team is more specifically interested in complex environments where hydrological responses are the result of the interdependence of numerous hydrological processes, of course, but also eco-physiological, micro-meteorological, etc. On the other hand, the environments studied can cover a range of variable scales limited to a few hectares, a few km² or cover regions of the globe such as the Sahel or even West Africa.

Scientific questions :

The scientific questions of the PHyREV team concern on the one hand the scale interactions and on the other hand the interactions between surface processes and aquifer recharge :

• How to answer the issues concerning the fate of water resources (aquifers, surface water) on a regional scale based on the knowledge of processes identified at lower scales (parcel, catchment, elementary watershed) ?

• What are the interactions between surface processes and aquifer recharge and to what extent is it necessary to take these interactions into account to predict water resource availability and hydrological hazards ?