“It’s a continuous series of records that we have never seen in the history of France,” declares a hydrologist

If we cannot speak of “desertification”, we “clearly have a semi-arid territory”, explains Emma Haziza, specialist in adaptation to climate change.

In the Pyrénées-Orientales, “we have a succession of historical records, which we have never seen in the history of France” And “which only become more accentuated”, notes Friday January 26 on franceinfo, Emma Haziza, hydrologist and specialist in adaptation to climate change and president-founder of the Mayane research center.

The department saw several temperature records broken on Thursday: 25.6 degrees in Vivès, compared to 23.9 at the last record, 25.1 in Saint-Paul-de-Fenouillet compared to 21.1 previously. “When we look, the Pyrénées-Orientales is this territory which is in a transition phase” with a phenomenon “chronic lack of rain” since 2017, “accentuated by these temperature phenomena”.

“Forgotten by the rains for eight years”

“We have the impression that this territory has been forgotten by the rains for eight years now”alert Emma Haziza, “so it’s this chronic stress that means that today we have an absolutely extraordinary shift that we’ve never seen before.” We can not “not yet completely” talk about the phenomenon of desertification in the Pyrénées-Orientales, but we have “clearly a semi-arid territory”. We join “precipitation that can be found in Spain or Portugal”.

“There will be energy consequences”predicts the hydrologist, “since the water issue is above all a question of energy production”citing the example of dams in Portugal, which, in this period “should be 90% full and are only 6% full”. The consequences are also agricultural, in a territory “very arboreal” And “we are reaching a limit”with a “confrontation between tourism stakeholders and farmers”.

“We went by a thread last summer”she recalls, “we had boreholes where there were 10 cm of water, we no longer had drinking water for the residents. So really, when I say that we passed a wire, it means that we missed a crisis situation which could have been a global blockage. And when we no longer have drinking water, it’s an area that becomes uninhabitable, so we’re at that limit.”