In twelve years of work, Sandro Casagrande, speleologist and technical director of the Clamouse cave, in the Hérault, has never experienced such a drying up: the level of the underground river is falling more and more, at a rate of five meters per year. An alarming observation that, in addition to the lack of water, also threatens the cave: "it risks causing cracks, faults and collapses".

An increasingly fragile resource

Charline Morin, natural hazards engineer at Mayane, estimates the loss at one meter since her last foray into the cave, three weeks earlier. For her, this decrease reflects an increasingly fragile ecologically and environmentally fragile resource and potential impacts on the territory in terms of water uses. Because the water table of the cave feeds six villages, a little more than 5,000 people.

OUR "DROUGHT" DOSSIER

Groundwater accounts for two-thirds of our drinking water consumption and one-third of the water used by the agricultural sector. According to the latest figures, including those of the Bureau de recherches géologiques et minières (BRGM), 75% of groundwater is currently low to very low in France.

This article is produced by Brut and hosted by 20 Minutes.

  • Drought
  • Environment
  • Planet
  • Crude
  • Hérault
  • Occitania
  • Languedoc-Roussillon
  • Video
  • Water
  • Cave