Managing Groundwater Resources Using A National Reference Database The French ADES Concept

Abstract Groundwater is an integral part of the water cycle and an essential resource for human use. This moving heritage must be protected and preserved sustainably through understanding of the physical and chemical functioning of aquifers, and by monitoring its quantity and quality. The ADES groundwater database, created for storing and making available groundwater data in France, is a freely accessible tool for water management and communication, with easy data availability and exchange. Data originate from different producers, which requires normalization and standardization of the system needs, to allow data integration and exchange. Shared data models were set up and the system is based on communal repositories of water points and hydrogeological entities. Nearly 102 million groundwater-quality data and over 17 million water-level data are currently available, covering almost 61,800 stations. ADES allows visualization of water level data in “real time" for about 1500 stations equipped with GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) technology; it provides, on a public website and via web services, public quantitative and qualitative data that can be searched with different criteria. Data can be visualised in graphical or tabular form, and downloaded with associated metadata.