has taken place in successive stages [61]. It followed changes in paradigms
(all-sewer sanitation), triggers (catastrophic floods), increasing water needs, new
uses (cooling of nuclear power plants, agricultural irrigation), new awareness of
water quality, wetland functionality, and aquatic biodiversity. A marker of these
social responses are the laws concerning aquatic environments. The main laws for
France are those of 1807, 1858, and 2014–2017 (flood prevention); 1829, 1865, and
1984 (river fishing laws); 1837, 1846, 1878, and 1880 (Seine River navigation
improvement) and 1956 (Code for Waterways and Inland Navigation); and 1898,
1964, 1992, and 2006 (water quality and general river management).
It has been possible to undertake such a study on the Seine River basin due to the
fact that it is an exceptionally rich territory in terms of environmental archives:
1. We have been able to reconstruct the nitrogen circulation and the related water
quality, going as far as back in the Middle Ages, based on quantitative economic
archives from ecclesiastic records [62].
2. A cartographic database on the river course and its corridor showing its evolution
since the end of the eighteenth century has been set up, thanks to the archives of
Ponts et Chaussées engineers [48].
3. We benefit from historical data (e.g. the nutrient chemistry and microbiological
analyses; river hydrological records), which started in the second half of the
nineteenth century – the chemical and bacteriological analyses of Seine water are
one of the earliest ever made and have been regularly surveyed since the late
nineteenth century [63].
4. We have also used sediment archives to reconstruct the river contamination by
numerous and diverse legacy pollutants (heavy metals, PCBs, etc.), over
50–80 years, while the reliable surveys of these substances only started after
the 2000s [26].
5. We have analysed historical agricultural censuses from 1854 to the present [45]
and their associated greenhouse gas emissions [64].
6. We have also reconstructed the evolution of the fish population, a key integrative
ecological indicator within the basin, from historical and archaeological archives
collected over more than two centuries [65, 66].
The Seine River basin, therefore, provides an exceptional array of quantitative
information, since it has provided water, energy, and food to Paris, France’s capital
city, for centuries. Reliable documentation dating back to the First Empire (early
nineteenth century), when systematic mapping, population censuses, and economic
statistics were started, is available.
To further address the interactions between the Seine basin society and its river
over the longue durée and to understand these changes, we need access to the
evolution of several controlling factors of the river basin system such as hydroclimate evolution (so far addressed from the second half of the nineteenth century
[67]), changes in agricultural practices, industrial activities, population distribution
and sanitation history, river navigation structures and other river uses, the introduction of aquatic species, etc. A schematic view of these trends is presented in Fig. 7.
They show a wide spectrum of evolution, rarely linear and regular, varying from a
uniform increase in population over the past 200 years to plateau features, bell shapes
14
N. Flipo et al.
(all-sewer sanitation), triggers (catastrophic floods), increasing water needs, new
uses (cooling of nuclear power plants, agricultural irrigation), new awareness of
water quality, wetland functionality, and aquatic biodiversity. A marker of these
social responses are the laws concerning aquatic environments. The main laws for
France are those of 1807, 1858, and 2014–2017 (flood prevention); 1829, 1865, and
1984 (river fishing laws); 1837, 1846, 1878, and 1880 (Seine River navigation
improvement) and 1956 (Code for Waterways and Inland Navigation); and 1898,
1964, 1992, and 2006 (water quality and general river management).
It has been possible to undertake such a study on the Seine River basin due to the
fact that it is an exceptionally rich territory in terms of environmental archives:
1. We have been able to reconstruct the nitrogen circulation and the related water
quality, going as far as back in the Middle Ages, based on quantitative economic
archives from ecclesiastic records [62].
2. A cartographic database on the river course and its corridor showing its evolution
since the end of the eighteenth century has been set up, thanks to the archives of
Ponts et Chaussées engineers [48].
3. We benefit from historical data (e.g. the nutrient chemistry and microbiological
analyses; river hydrological records), which started in the second half of the
nineteenth century – the chemical and bacteriological analyses of Seine water are
one of the earliest ever made and have been regularly surveyed since the late
nineteenth century [63].
4. We have also used sediment archives to reconstruct the river contamination by
numerous and diverse legacy pollutants (heavy metals, PCBs, etc.), over
50–80 years, while the reliable surveys of these substances only started after
the 2000s [26].
5. We have analysed historical agricultural censuses from 1854 to the present [45]
and their associated greenhouse gas emissions [64].
6. We have also reconstructed the evolution of the fish population, a key integrative
ecological indicator within the basin, from historical and archaeological archives
collected over more than two centuries [65, 66].
The Seine River basin, therefore, provides an exceptional array of quantitative
information, since it has provided water, energy, and food to Paris, France’s capital
city, for centuries. Reliable documentation dating back to the First Empire (early
nineteenth century), when systematic mapping, population censuses, and economic
statistics were started, is available.
To further address the interactions between the Seine basin society and its river
over the longue durée and to understand these changes, we need access to the
evolution of several controlling factors of the river basin system such as hydroclimate evolution (so far addressed from the second half of the nineteenth century
[67]), changes in agricultural practices, industrial activities, population distribution
and sanitation history, river navigation structures and other river uses, the introduction of aquatic species, etc. A schematic view of these trends is presented in Fig. 7.
They show a wide spectrum of evolution, rarely linear and regular, varying from a
uniform increase in population over the past 200 years to plateau features, bell shapes
14
N. Flipo et al.