Les dessous de la garrigue or a story of water for the people of Montpellier

The conference will deal with karst and underground water resources around Montpellier, but can be generalized to many Mediterranean regions.

Water is a precious common good, and we often hear that the coming century will be the century of the search for water and its preservation. Not all regions of the world are equal when it comes to water abundance and quality. The Montpellier region is very fortunate in that, beneath its limestone garrigues, it possesses a natural reservoir located in the karst of the Upper Jurassic limestones, which were deposited on the margin of the Alpine Ocean around 135 million years ago. The roof of these limestones, which support our Mediterranean garrigues, collects large quantities of rainwater, which seeps into the porosity of the karst and can reside there, forming an underground water table, where the water is stored and can be tapped in large quantities either at natural springs or by drilling. The water is regularly replenished by abundant rainfall. The most important challenge for the future of our needs will be to preserve the quality of this water intact by preventing human and industrial pollution. The message for the future is therefore to preserve the integrity of our garrigues, the receptacle of the rainwater we drink.

Michel Bakalowicz holds a PhD in Natural Sciences from the University of Paris-6, after a post-graduate thesis on karstic hydrogeology in the Taurus region, Turkey. He worked at CEMAGREF, in the Hydrology division. He then completed his thesis at the CNRS Laboratoire Souterrain on the contribution of geochemistry to karst knowledge. He was then seconded to Mac Master University, Hamilton, Ontario, to study underground paleoenvironments using isotopes and U/Th radiochronology. He was seconded to BRGM as scientific advisor when the Hydrogéologie des milieux hétérogènes unit was set up in Montpellier, to develop research in karst hydrogeology (1995-2004). Finally, within the framework of cooperation with Lebanon, he was seconded to the IRD to manage the Regional Center for Water and the Environment. From 1995 to 2008, he was attached to the HydroSciences Montpellier laboratory. He has also worked as an expert for the IAEA, leading and evaluating projects on karst water resources in Haiti, Morocco, Algeria, Syria and Lebanon, and has led scientific cooperation projects in China.