International collaborations on water

While water resources are threatened by the depletion of the resource and climate change, one global challenge remains: feeding the planet to reach the target of zero hunger. Partnerships, built at the national, European and international level are essential in order to meet this challenge collectively.

INRAE advocates for agroecology to develop crop and livestock systems that are both water efficient and capable of mitigating climate change. Increasing soil carbon storage and the resilience of agriculture to climate change effects rely on several practices: soil preservation, livestock-crop complementarity, diversification of animal breeds and crop varieties, with a selection of species more tolerant to drought, landscape elements (hedges, grassy strips) to curb runoff, etc. Agroforestry and conservation agriculture are particularly promising avenues.

Thus, in the French context, our research favours the adaptation of rain-fed agriculture rather than the systematic development of irrigation. Irrigation is a potential additional lever for crop diversification and a safety practice, rather than a means of systematically maximizing yields. In addition, the modernization of irrigation equipment can lead to water savings of 10 to 40%. Work in the social sciences studies the decision-making mechanisms and public policies favourable to this agro-ecological transition, from an integrative vision encompassing the whole society.

Today, according to the United Nations 6 in 10 people in the world lack access to safely managed sanitation facilities. INRAE has been designing innovative wastewater treatment and sanitation process that can be applied to local context. We have developed nature based solutions for domestic wastewater treatment. The French-system of vertical flow constructed wetland is the most widely used treatment process in mainland France since its first implementation in the 1990s. Using this process in rural areas demonstrated the efficiency of the method and proved to be well adapted to operating needs and skilled labour shortage in these areas. Since the early 2000s, at the request of the French Ministry of the Environment, researchers have been working on adapting this process to tropical climate for the French overseas territories.

However, generally speaking, the application of treatment processes to other countries has revealed organisational problems between actors. Researchers are designing approaches responding to this issue, allowing populations to participate to decision-making and capacity-building.

Freshwater resources are a global issue from an ecological, economic or political point of view. The concerns related to them concern their accessibility and their quality, in a context where the human population, along with human activity, is increasing. Increasingly significant differences are observed in the ecological trajectories of continental aquatic ecosystems between developed and developing countries. The former are, for many of them, engaged in a restoration dynamic which is based in particular on the control of nutrient inputs (e.g. banning phosphates from washing powders) and organic pollution (e.g. improvement of wastewater treatment). The latter are inversely engaged in a process of degradation of their aquatic ecosystems with multiple consequences on their functioning and their use.

It is in this context that the international project WaSAf – Water Sources in Africa, focused on the monitoring and protection of continental surface aquatic systems used for the production of drinking water in three African countries, Ivory Coast, Senegal and Uganda.

Our expertise contributes to the development and implementation of international agreements and to inform society, public decision-makers, managers to develop and support appropriate and efficient policies. We are gathering scientific knowledge, research topics and methods that can be used to engineer efficient public policies applicable at both a regional and international scales.

Collaborating with major institutions such as the FAO, World Bank or IPCC, and French and European ministries, parliaments and institutions. Upon the request of the French authorities INRAE has ​​carried out three collective scientific assessments linked to water on drought, eutrophication and hill reservoirs at the national level.

To discover our international expertise on water, watch some of our experts present their work at INRAE