Investigating GEMAPI: which origins and which effects on local water management?

Abstract

Two recent French devolution acts gave a new competence to groups of local authorities ("intercommunalités") for the management of aquatic environments as well as for flood prevention (abbreviated GEMAPI in French). The GEMAPI competence, enforced since 1st January 2018, has been the subject of significant parliamentary and senatorial debates and an intense production of writings of all kinds. We studied the making of the GEMAPI following two objectives: first we aimed at producing a genealogy of the inclusion of GEMAPI in the MAPTAM and NOTRe acts and related regulatory documents, second we wanted to better grasp how GEMAPI actually impacts local water management and conversely. We based our analysis on parliamentary and senatorial debates records and on semi-structured interviews with actors of local water management. We show the negotiations between central, local State administration and local governments particularly on stakes such as funding, responsibility and jurisdiction exercise. Our analysis of the discourses highlights how various spoke-persons of local public action have contributed to reshape the law and regulations concerning GEMAPI.