Trajectories of the Seine River Basin
Nicolas Flipo, Laurence Lestel, Pierre Labadie, Michel Meybeck,
and Josette Garnier
Contents
1 Introduction: River Systems in the Anthropocene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2 Multiple and Heavy Pressures on the Seine River System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1 The Hydrological Features of the Seine River Basin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2 Evolution of the Basin Population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.3 The Land Cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.4 Industries and Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3 PIREN-Seine Research on the River Basin Trajectories . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . 10
3.1 Circulation of Material Within the Basin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.2 Multiple Long-Term Trajectories of River Control Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.3 Trajectories of River State and Societal Response to River Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4 Structuration of the Socioecological Research in the Context of the PIREN-Seine . . . . . . . . 17
4.1 Evolution of Main Research Themes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.2 Present Structuration of the PIREN-Seine Research Programme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5 The Spatio-Temporal Scales of the Research Themes Selected in This Publication . . . . . . . 22
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Abstract The Seine River basin in France (76,238 km
2 , 17 million (M) people) has
been continuously studied since 1989 by the PIREN-Seine, a multidisciplinary
programme of about 100 scientists from 20 research units (hydrologists, environmental chemists, ecologists, biogeochemists, geographers, environmental historians). Initially PIREN-Seine was established to fill the knowledge gap on the river
functioning, particularly downstream of the Paris conurbation (12 M people), where
the pressure and impacts were at their highest in the 1980s (e.g. chronic summer
hypoxia). One aim was to provide tools, such as models, to manage water resources
N. Flipo (*)
Geosciences Department, MINES ParisTech, PSL University, Fontainebleau, France
e-mail: Nicolas.Flipo@mines-paristech.fr
L. Lestel, M. Meybeck, and J. Garnier
SU CNRS EPHE UMR 7619 Metis, Paris, France
P. Labadie
University of Bordeaux, CNRS, UMR 5805 EPOC, Talence, France
Nicolas Flipo, Pierre Labadie, and Laurence Lestel (eds.), The Seine River Basin,
Hdb Env Chem (2021) 90: 1–28, https://doi.org/10.1007/698_2019_437,
© The Author(s) 2020, Published online: 3 June 2020
1
Nicolas Flipo, Laurence Lestel, Pierre Labadie, Michel Meybeck,
and Josette Garnier
Contents
1 Introduction: River Systems in the Anthropocene . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
2 Multiple and Heavy Pressures on the Seine River System . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.1 The Hydrological Features of the Seine River Basin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
2.2 Evolution of the Basin Population . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.3 The Land Cover . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.4 Industries and Navigation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
3 PIREN-Seine Research on the River Basin Trajectories . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . 10
3.1 Circulation of Material Within the Basin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
3.2 Multiple Long-Term Trajectories of River Control Factors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3.3 Trajectories of River State and Societal Response to River Issues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
4 Structuration of the Socioecological Research in the Context of the PIREN-Seine . . . . . . . . 17
4.1 Evolution of Main Research Themes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
4.2 Present Structuration of the PIREN-Seine Research Programme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
5 The Spatio-Temporal Scales of the Research Themes Selected in This Publication . . . . . . . 22
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Abstract The Seine River basin in France (76,238 km
2 , 17 million (M) people) has
been continuously studied since 1989 by the PIREN-Seine, a multidisciplinary
programme of about 100 scientists from 20 research units (hydrologists, environmental chemists, ecologists, biogeochemists, geographers, environmental historians). Initially PIREN-Seine was established to fill the knowledge gap on the river
functioning, particularly downstream of the Paris conurbation (12 M people), where
the pressure and impacts were at their highest in the 1980s (e.g. chronic summer
hypoxia). One aim was to provide tools, such as models, to manage water resources
N. Flipo (*)
Geosciences Department, MINES ParisTech, PSL University, Fontainebleau, France
e-mail: Nicolas.Flipo@mines-paristech.fr
L. Lestel, M. Meybeck, and J. Garnier
SU CNRS EPHE UMR 7619 Metis, Paris, France
P. Labadie
University of Bordeaux, CNRS, UMR 5805 EPOC, Talence, France
Nicolas Flipo, Pierre Labadie, and Laurence Lestel (eds.), The Seine River Basin,
Hdb Env Chem (2021) 90: 1–28, https://doi.org/10.1007/698_2019_437,
© The Author(s) 2020, Published online: 3 June 2020
1