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The drought that is already crossing France is lowering the level of groundwater. To remedy this, there is a solution: use water from rivers to artificially feed groundwater.
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 the last small particles to be removed from the water after the settling stage“, explains Gaston Luisin, treatment technician at Suez.
Having become pure, the water is then poured into large basins, for infiltration to the water tables. It crosses permeable soil in just two days, whereas it would take several weeks in a natural environment. Every 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.