River Basin Visions: Tools and Approaches from Yesterday to Tomorrow

Abstract The aim of this chapter is to provide a critical assessment of the approaches and production of tools within the PIREN-Seine programme over the past 30 years, as well as their use for river basin management and river quality improvement, and to analyse the challenges for the future. Three types of tools used in the PIREN-Seine programme are presented: metrology and fieldwork; model construction, simulation and their use in scenarios; and participatory science tools. These tools have been gradually built by the PIREN-Seine researchers and often developed together with the partners of the research programme, the main managers of the Seine River basin. Three issues raised by scientists and their partners are identified: (1) for metrology, how it has been improved to measure the state of waterbodies and to avoid their degradation; (2) for models, what they currently do and do not do and how they share common knowledge with practitioners; and (3) the place of researchers in the use of participatory devices in territories and their view of the effects of these tools to improve the quality of rivers and aquifers.