artificial groundwater recharge as a solution

In Yvelines, water from the Seine is transformed into clean water to artificially recharge groundwater. First step: branches and rubbish are removed. Second step: the water is treated and then filtered. Suspended solids end up at the bottom of the basins: this is settling. The water is then sent to tanks filled with a layer of activated carbon. “The water, we will still filter it and this is where the carbon will allow us to remove the last small particles from the water after the settling stage”explains Gaston Luisin, Suez treatment technician.

Having become pure, the water is then poured into large basins. It is the infiltration to the water tables. It crosses permeable soil in just two days, whereas it would take several weeks in a natural environment. Each year, 15 to 30 million cubic meters are pumped into the Seine, enough to supply drinking water to 1 million people. The artificial supply of water tables already exists in about twenty sites in France but it is not possible everywhere.