Restrictions don't refill aquifers
#00076
Demand-side water restrictions keep human supply running through dry summers but do nothing to recharge the Sundgau's small aquifers or relieve forest water stress. The forests continue to decline regardless of how strict the bans on garden watering become.
Parent issue
#00073 Drought-period water restrictions
Description
The Sundgau's drought response is built around protecting human drinking-water supply: prefectural alerts, watering bans, tanker deliveries when sources run dry. Within that narrow goal, the system works — taps stay on and acute crises are managed. But it is not, and cannot be, a forest solution.
Aquifer recharge in the Sundgau depends on winter rainfall slowly soaking into the ground. Reducing summer water use does not put water back into the ground; at best it prevents the existing reserves from being drawn down faster. The forest, meanwhile, depends entirely on direct rainfall and soil moisture, neither of which is affected by what humans pump from taps. Every dry summer the forest draws down its own moisture reserves and loses more trees, regardless of how strict the human-side restrictions are. Closing this gap requires intervening in the landscape itself, not just on the demand side.