Formalization of a method for delimiting wetlands according to the criteria of the Water Law: application to the Burgundy region

Abstract

The government plan of action for wetland safeguard and recovery in France has been translated, in Burgundy and following the DIREN's initiative, by the working-out of specific terms and conditions which set down an inventory principle, resting on the eligibility criteria of the second article of the law about water. On the basis of such precepts, we have developed a specific method about wetland inventory. Mainly technically speaking, the inventory method is made of two stages. The first one, the analytic one, consists of a stratification of the area, centered on the distribution and space variability of the ecological factors, which can generate wetland. This model stage constitutes a pre-map-making and prepares land prospections, that is the second stage of the inventory. The land analysis is a means to test the reliability and sturdiness of the models, which had been carried out and leads to the creation of the definitive wetland map-making. On an experimental basis, we have coupled this method together with an experimental map-making thanks to satellite multidate images in order to make wetland maps of liable to flooding land of the Saône and Doubs valleys. The quality of the results is encouraging and foreshadows a possible generalization of this tool for wetland inventory.