Water Management, Stakeholders, Users (G-EAU)

The Water Management, Actors, Uses joint research unit brings together 90 permanent researchers and engineers and around 50 doctoral and postdoctoral students from all disciplines working together on issues of integrated and adaptive water management. It conducts research on the trajectories of socio-hydrosystems and their regulation; it contributes to the design and evaluation of tools facilitating the implementation of innovative public policies concerning water; it participates in multidisciplinary training of students in the field of water. The UMR G-EAU, attached to the I-Site MUSE, is a member of ICIREWARD, a Category 2 Center under the auspices of UNESCO on water in Montpellier.

The core of the UMR G-EAU project is to understand how socio-hydrosystems function both in normal circumstances and in times of crisis or high stress (shortages, flooding, pollution). We analyze the hydrological, technical, social, economic, and political processes within a water-related territory and their consequences. We also draw on our interdisciplinary strengths to analyze the combined effects of these processes and ultimately identify opportunities for governance and adaptation in complex and uncertain environments. The project includes the design and testing, in interaction with society, of tools and mechanisms aimed at revealing how these systems work and influencing their trajectory.

Originating from teams working on irrigated systems, the UMR G-EAU has gradually broadened its focus to include integrated management. It now approaches water-related territories as complex systems, drawing on a variety of perspectives:

• Multiple uses and interests: irrigation, drinking water, recreation, energy, purification, flood protection
• Multiple types of water: surface water, groundwater, wastewater
• Plurality of processes: water and pollutant transfers, irrigation technologies, economic instruments, public participation, modes of appropriation
• Multiple modes of regulation: infrastructure in rivers and canals, policies on access to water and land use, standards relating to water use.
• Plurality of disciplines
• For all of its research, the UMR G-EAU emphasizes approaches rooted in case studies. This means investing in research based on field observation, supplemented by experimental approaches conducted in interaction with users and/or managers. To build on the knowledge thus generated, the UMR relies on a large network of partners and research sites around the world, in France and in countries of the Global South, presenting a diversity of water-related issues and hydro-ecological, socio-economic, and political contexts. One-third of our staff are expatriates in North Africa, West and Southern Africa, and Southeast Asia. In France, collaboration agreements bring us closer to institutions in charge of watershed management. This involvement in the field leads to strong interactions with stakeholders.

Finally, the G-EAU joint research unit is committed to transferring its results. Three avenues are being pursued to achieve this:

• Testing the proposed techniques and instruments with local institutions,
• Training students in the North within the Montpellier Water Master's program and engineering schools, under the supervision of the UMR (Montpellier SupAgro and AgroParisTech), and in the South within Master's programs run by our host partners.
• Welcoming partner companies, particularly young start-ups.

Label:Joint Research Unit Research UMR)
Main supervisory bodies: CIRAD– IRD – INRAE – AgroParis Tech – Institut Agro – BRGM
Secondary supervisory authority: UM
Research cluster:Agriculture-Environment-Biodiversity (AEB) cluster
Doctoral schools: EDEG: Economics and Management – GAIA: Biodiversity, Agriculture, Food, Environment, Earth, Water