The term "zone humide", made its entrance in France in the 60’s. Translated from the English "wetland", it is a general term to define places of transition between terrestrial and aquatic environments. These can be composed of fresh, salt or brackish water. These areas have a major role for biodiversity, but also in the water cycle. Indeed, they help maintain water quality, slow down runoff, reduce the intensity of floods and support the flow of rivers during dry periods. They therefore play a Important role in modulating/dampening global warming. Each year, wetlands provide freshwater for domestic (11%), industrial (19%) and agricultural (70%) uses, i.e. 3,900 km3 of water are withdrawn from rivers and aquifers.

Wetlands fall into three categories:

Freshwater wetlands such as natural ponds, moors, wet forests, marshes, meadows, peat bogs

Wetlands composed of salt or brackish water found in estuaries, ponds, lagoons, mudflats, mangroves
Artificial wetlands

Wetlands, a key ecosystem at risk

Wetlands are rich in biodiversity, with countless species of flora and fauna: birds, amphibians, fish, insects or molluscs... Unfortunately, these environments are fragile and particularly impacted by human activities (especially agriculture), pollution and climate change. Since the 1970s, 35% of wetlands in the world have disappeared (futura-sciences, 2022). At the global level, the Pantanal (South America), the largest wetland on the planet, is emblematic of these difficulties: it is home to the richest biodiversity of aquatic plants in the world (and an exceptional density of wildlife) but it is threatened by deforestation, cultivation and exploitation of geological resources

In France (including metropolitan and overseas) there are approximately 3.51 million hectares of wetlands. The Camargue nature reserve, with 85,000 hectares, is the largest wetland area in France. The Bay of the Somme, with its 17,000 hectares of coastline and marshes, is home to the Parc du Marquenterre, a veritable sanctuary for thousands of migratory birds for the past 40 years. The Loire Valley, a cultural landscape shaped by centuries of history between the river, the land it irrigates and the population, was listed as a UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site in 2000. Under the pressure of urbanization and land use, it is estimated that 67% of wetlands have disappeared since the beginning of the 20th century, half of them between 1960 and 1990 (Source: Ministry of Agriculture). The stakes of their preservation are just as crucial. Peatlands, for example, are impacted by climate change which leads to a water deficit and thus progressively lose their taxa to the benefit of other species that do not have the same needs. This could lead to their disappearance in a few years and to the release of significant quantities of greenhouse gases (for example, the Guette peat bog in the Cher). Another example that concerns us particularly in Marseille is the impacts of development and industrial installations (filling, pollution, discharges) on the “Etang de Berre” (the largest brackish water pond in Europe), and the Gulf of Fos.

Wetlands protection measures

There are many measures in the world and in France to protect these areas.

The first is the Ramsar Convention (which celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2021). This convention was signed by 18 countries on 2 February 1971 in Iran and has since been ratified by many more. Today, 171 countries are committed to protecting their wetlands, designating more than 2,400 wetlands of international importance on the Ramsar register, a combined area the size of Argentina.

In November 2022, France has 52 Ramsar sites, including 12 in overseas France. Protection of wetlands | Ministries Ecology Energy Territories (ecologie.gouv.fr)

Make an inventory of these wetlands:

By identifying and listing them we give importance to their protection. For this, some territories like Luberon-Lure have been the subject of various inventories (2005–2012). It is one of the first to set up awareness actions and have a complete and precise listing of wetlands, including the largest as well as the smallest (less than one hectare). These constitute small oases of life; often misunderstood and abused, they abound however in a great biodiversity.

In 2019, Luberon-Lure are putting in place strategies involving local communities by identifying the different issues involved. Conservation, preservation, and restoration are the three main axes of these strategies.

The creation of a special area of conservation

A special area of conservation is a regulatory area defined by ministerial order, aimed at the conservation of habitat types and animal and plant species. This is what has been put in place, also by the Luberon-Lure Park with the Natura 2000 program.

This regulation allows to protect the fauna and flora of the place.

In this example, the main patrimonial species related to the characteristics of the site are :

Amphibians: the Pelobates cultripes, the common midwife toad, the natterjack toad, the southern tree frog, the palm tree newt...
Invertebrates: the white-clawed crayfish, the mercury agrion, the fine-bodied cordulia, the tricolored cricket, the margined cricket...
Mammals: the European beaver and the European otter (in the process of recolonization)
Fish : the southern barb, the blageon, the toxoxtome, the fario trout, the eel...
Birds : kingfisher, dipper, European guepier, European oriole...

Reptiles : the European cistude, the ringed snake...

As far as the flora is concerned, 11 plant species with very high local conservation stakes are present, including 8 protected species.

The French regulation SAGE which is a Water Development and Management Scheme (in direct link with the ORACLE project).

To implement these protections effectively, it is necessary to have an inventory and a detailed management plan of these areas. This is complex because wetlands are numerous (in PACA, about 5000 are already listed), managed by multiple entities and are constantly evolving (geographical limits, environment, biodiversity, human impacts, ...).

It is therefore essential to have a tool dedicated to the management of wetlands and accessible to the various entities contributing involved in its preservation: this is what the new module "Wetlands" of GeoNature allows.

A tool for the collection, management, prioritization and valorization of wetlands integrated into the GeoNature ecosystem

The "Wetlands" module of GeoNature has been developed by Natural Solutions for the Territorial Information System of the Natural Parks of the South Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Region (SIT PACA). The SIT PACA is an information system shared by all the regional natural parks of PACA http://geo.pnrpaca.org/qu-est-ce-que-le-systeme-d-information-territorial :

Regional Natural Park of Alpilles
Camargue Regional Nature Park
Baronnies provençales Regional Nature Park

Luberon Regional Nature Park
Mont Ventoux Regional Nature Park
Préalpes d'Azur Regional Nature Park
Queyras Regional Nature Park
Saint-Baume Regional Nature Park

Verdon Regional Nature Park

The initial financing was proposed by the Regional Natural Parks (RNP / PNR in French) of Luberon with a participation of the PNR de la Sainte-Beaume. Natural Solutions has self-financed this module up to 50%.

The module was based on the former SIT PACA tool "PNR Zones Humides" financed by the State, the Agence of water “Rhône Méditerranée Corse”, the Region “Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur” and the RNP of Camargue, Lubéron, Queyras and Verdon. This tool was an implementation of the Medwet - Water Agency database with an interface and a hierarchy of wetlands.

Improvements (interface, ergonomics, structure of the database, additional functionalities) were then proposed to create a module with all of the tools necessary for the management of a wetland.

As the module belongs to the GeoNature ecosystem, it benefits from a set of functionalities that facilitate its use, maintenance and evolution, such as the, management of users (Usershub), taxons (TaxHub), nomenclatures, and an established database structure. Moreover, the tool is open-source and benefits from the constant contributions (discussions, developments, maintenance) of the whole community.

How the "Wetlands" module works

The "wetlands" module is divided into 10 tabs that allows the entry of all the data necessary for the management of a wetland:

Map tab: allows you to map the wetland and fill in the necessary information such as the name and the SDAGE typology of the wetland. This information can be used to automatically define the watersheds and hydrographic zones to which the wetlands belong.

tab 1: concerns additional fields for identifying the wetland and offers the possibility of adding bibliographic references

tab 2: gives the possibility to specify the delimitation criteria
tab 3: allows to describe the wetland environment (SAGE sub-type, Corine biotopes habitats, land use with Corine Land Cover nomenclature), to list human activities and to assess threats.

Tab 4: focuses on the functioning of the wetland (water regime, connection to its environment, functional diagnosis)

Tab 5 allows to:
List the hydrological, biogeochemical, biological and ecological functions of the wetland

List the heritage interests
List the natural wetland heritage habitats
Query a GeoNature or external database (depending on the configuration of the module) to list the protected taxa (fauna and flora) that have been observed in the wetland area
List the socio-economic values

tab 6: provides information on the means of managing the wetland (land tenure, ownership status, management structures, contractual and financial instruments, inventories, main statutes, zoning in urban planning documents)

tab 7: this is a summary of essential information which, at the end of the tab, makes it possible to draw up a management strategy and propose actions associated with priority levels.

tab 8: allows you to download documents

tab 9: generates a score for the wetland which allows to rank it among the other wetlands belonging to the same catchment area (the characteristics of the catchment area allowing to calculate the score are to be filled in upstream in the database by the administrator)

In addition to these tabs, the home page of the module allows to list all the wetlands entered by showing simultaneously their territorial extent on a map. An i icon placed on each wetland gives access to a complete sheet that not only contains the data entered in the different tabs but also information automatically calculated in the background of the application during the input: geographical information, percentage of territory occupied by a wetland within each municipality it intersects, list of inventories concerned by the wetland (ZNIEFF, RAMSAR, Natural2000, ...). Finally, it is possible to download a summary sheet in pdf format containing the key information on the wetland.

More details on the module are available here: https://github.com/PnX-SI/gn_module_ZH

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