Conférence - « River socio-hydrosystems, a key component of the Earth system at the Anthropocene. Example of the Seine River , 1850-2010 »

Une conférence intitulée « River socio-hydrosystems, a key component of the Earth system at the Anthropocene. Example of the Seine River , 1850-2010 » aura lieu le vendredi 8 avril à 11h30 en ligne.

Une conférence intitulée « River socio-hydrosystems, a key component of the Earth system at the Anthropocene. Example of the Seine River , 1850-2010 » aura lieu le vendredi 08 avril à 11h00 en ligne. Elle sera animée en anglais par Michel Meybek : River basins have been identified very early on as a key component of fluxes from continents to oceans, driving the geochemical cycles. Fifty years ago riverine changes started to be observed on large basins , then extrapolated to a global scale : many fluxes of salts and nutrients had at least doubled in the 1980s, whereas overall sediment fluxes had markedly decreased . In some regions, the flows of rivers had already been  considerably reduced , in others severe ecological alteration had been observed.  In the year 2000, when Paul Crutzen proposed to consider the Anthropocene as a new era in which human forces were at least equivalent to natural forcings, rivers systems were immediately used to illustrate these global changes by the Earth System community. However the co-evolution of river systems and sociosystems in each basin remains poorly addressed, particularly for the water quality and for the longue durée ( >100y). Medium-sized river basins make it possible to perform such detailed analysis which combine historical river fluxes, material flows, river ecology, environmental history and political ecology. The Seine River basin, a 78 000 km2 territory inhabited by 18 million inhabitants ( 12 millions in Paris megalopole) belongs to the first industrialized western societies. Both river and basin have been used over centuries for fish and water resources, agriculture, urban development, industries, waterways. This Holocene-Anthropocene transition  ( 1850-2010) is described by a dedicated interdisciplinary research programme (Piren-Seine), supported since 1989 by the major stakeholders of the basin. We have developed new transversal  approaches , concepts, and models particularly for the water  quality . Examples of  multiple river agro-food system trajectories over the Longue duree ( up to 150y), sedmentary archives,  social construction of water quality,  water quality conflict, construction of future possible scenarios. This research has shown how scientific and technological knowledge, environmental awareness, environmental regulations and policies, political decisions have played a role during that period.

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