7. Water management in France

French water consumption is 16 billion m ³ /year, divided equally between drinking water, watering, agricultural irrigation and industry (excluding energy).

France, a temperate country, has very substantial resources overall, yet two-thirds of the country is affected by water restrictions in summer . Annual precipitation amounts to 512 billion m ³ , 61% of which evaporates via the soil and plants, 23% feeds the 200 exploitable underground aquifers with a volume of 2,000 billion m ³ , and 16% reaches the 270,000 km...