An experimental peri-urban basin in North-western France
Résumé
Basins located in the suburbs, known as peri-urban basins, face a quick land-use change, increasing pollution and flood risks. Being neither urban nor rural basins, they have been left apart by hydrologists. Improving hydrological models taking into account both natural and anthropogenic surfaces and pathways is the objective of the French project AVuPUR. One of the two peri-urban basins chosen for this project is the Chézine basin, located in northwestern France, in the suburbs of Nantes. The Chézine basin is subject to an oceanic climate and has a quite flat topography. Whereas the upstream part of the catchment remains essentially rural, the urbanization is dense in the downstream part and under development in the medium part. The mean urbanization over the basin is about 18%. A first part of the project consists of collecting geographical and hydrological data, followed by a first hydrological data analysis. Then different spatial segmentation methods are tested based on a geomorphological analysis and ultimately hydrological models well adapted for these particular basins will be developed.