La gestion contractuelle de l’eau avec les agriculteurs est-elle durable ? Approche politique et juridique

Abstract

The variety of protection of drinking water catchments in France reveals many sorts of negotiations organized between authorities and farmers. A legal and political reflexion about contractual tool leads to some contemporary trends of water management: limits and evolutions of law, sociological conditions of local arrangements, challenges and stakes for a sustainable protection. Two case studies, one in Vacquieres (Herault) and the other in Narbonne (Aude), have been analysed with the tools of the political science and they show a large diversity of contractual practices deployed by public and private stakeholders. However, two principal questions remain: is this territorialization of public action, which is supposed to be efficient, adapted to ensure to everybody a sanitary or even an environmental water quality? How to combine at best incentive and legal approach?