The Water Poverty Index (WPI) standardizes water scarcity diagnostics by considering natural, environmental, and socioeconomic factors which reduce, facilitate, or prevent water access. To integrate these factors, the WPI includes five components: resource, environment (negatively affected by development), capacity, access, and use (positively affected by development). Nevertheless, the place granted to hydrological factors is questioned, and many studies insist on the problematic correlation of WPI with the well-known Human Development Index (HDI). Calculating WPI in the socially heterogeneous and semi-arid context of the State of Chihuahua (Mexico), adapting traditional methodology thanks to geographic information systems (GIS) tools and the corresponding databases, allows discussion of those points. This study uses multi-criteria evaluations from TerrSet software to calculate WPI while preserving specific data precision. In this process, scale calculation and indicator normalization are adapted through raster maps and fuzzy techniques to valorize specific hydrological data. This opens interesting discussions for multidimensional water scarcity diagnostics, since they increase the visibility of diverse water scarcity issues in WPI results. In fact, concentrating socioeconomic factors in corresponding components and valuing GIS alternatives provides a diagnostic different from the HDI and sensitive to hydrological factors.

The studies carried out by the authors for several years, concerning runoff and erosion in temperate plains and hills environments, allow to understand floods formation in large farmlands. The studied watershed belongs to the Laonnois hills domain where the slopes in « glacis »form are relatively steep (3-6 %) with small contributing areas. On these sites, several rainfall and runoff records are relevant to perceive and to explain floods formation which generate severe environmental and economical damages in the region. Links between climatic data (i.e. quantity, intensity and periodicity of rainfalls) and physical soil data (i.e. moisture, structure) were established in relation with man activity (soil occupation, agricultural practices, particularly machinery weight provoking infiltration decrease and available water mass increase). These data allow to establish a quantitative and qualitative budget model showing how modern agriculture interferes on the circulation of liquid and solid discharge in large farmlands. This analysis puts forth a better management for rural areas in order to reduce damages caused by this event; it is also an attempt to draw up a typology for the regions affected by risk potentialities.

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