If you have any interest in the field of water, you have probably already read or heard the acronym GEMAPI.

This is a very specific competence that the French state has entrusted to the inter-municipalities (metropolises, urban communities, communities of agglomerations, communities of communes) since January^1, 2018.

These EPCIs with their own tax status have the possibility of transferring or delegating this competence to Mixed Syndicates made up of elected representatives and which may be labelled EPAGE (Etablissement Public d'Aménagement et de Gestion de l'Eau - Public Establishment for Water Development and Management) and attached to an EPTB (Etablissement Public Territorial de Bassin - Public Territorial Basin Establishment).

But what does this competence include? Two major missions are grouped together for the sake of territorial coherence within the same acronym:

1. GEMA or Gestion des Milieux Aquatiques
2. IP or Flood Prevention

Thus, a single public authority exercises this dual competence, which has become mandatory, on the scale of a coherent geographical entity: typically a river basin. One of the objectives is to encourage cooperation between the various stakeholders involved in the same basin.

GEMAPI can be supported in particular by tools such as the major natural risk prevention fund or the flood prevention action programme (PAPI).

The content of the missions carried out includes the development of a basin, the management and construction of hydraulic protection works or the maintenance and restoration of watercourses and water bodies concerned by the perimeter of the establishment.

The coherent definition of these developments and management plans requires a detailed knowledge of the hydrological functioning of the basins. The instrumentation of watercourses thus gives EPCIs and Syndicates an opportunity to exercise their competence effectively.

Whether it's to monitor water levels, bank them, transmit them or generate flood alerts, our LNS acquisition station will be there.

Similarly, it could be the nerve centre of a system for monitoring physico-chemical parameters within the framework of a management plan for aquatic environments.