On the Aubrac, take part in the participatory river observation program: one photo is enough!

Il suffit de prendre une échelle en photo et de l’envoyer par SMS. DR – EPAGE Loire-Lignon

Follow the webinar this Thursday, June 20, 2024 to join this initiative led by the Aubrac Regional Natural Park.

From July, the Aubrac Regional Natural Park will set up a participatory river observation program. Everyone will be able to take a photo of the graduated scales and simply send it by SMS to the Park. "A photo, a text message and that’s it. The more regularly these readings are taken, the more detailed our knowledge of the evolution of water levels will be. Our objective is to run this program over the long term in order to better quantify the concrete impact of climate change in Aubrac", explains Cloé Garrel, project manager for aquatic environments at the Park.

For several years, an Aubrac water observatory has been created by the Park by aggregating data and studies from several partners, such as the fishing federations of the three departments, the Adour-Garonne Water Agency or the French Biodiversity Office.

"Less water in soils and rivers"

This tool, important for sharing knowledge between managers on waterways across the Aubrac massif, will now be able to be enriched. "Today, there is little monitoring of the flow rates of the waterways of the Aubrac", continues the project manager, " with climate change, even if we place ourselves in an optimistic hypothesis where the quantity of rain remains the same over the year, water needs will increase because of the increase temperature and plant evapotranspiration. There will therefore be less water available in soils and rivers."

The data collected will be shared in the Aubrac water observatory and in the citizen observatory set up by the Aubrac Agency. rsquo;eau and the National Center for Space Studies (CNES) in Toulouse.

By helping to identify impacted rivers, this program complements the actions already deployed by the Park, such as the restoration of wetlands to store more water during the winter and reduce water pollution. drying up of rivers in summer. Or working with breeders to secure watering for the herds on a plot crossed by a stream which dries up in the summer.

Webinar, Thursday June 20, at 6 p.m., to present the issues and explain the methods of public participation. Registration: eau@parc-naturel-aubrac.fr.