Ardières‐Morcille in the Beaujolais, France: A research catchment dedicated to study of the transport and impacts of diffuse agricultural pollution in rivers

Abstract

The 8-km 2 Morcille catchment, which is a sub-catchment of the 150-km 2 Ardières catchment in the Beaujolais region of France, is one of the first sites in Europe where research has been conducted on surface water contamination by pesticides. A consolidated hydrological and chemical dataset has been set up with data collected since 2002 on the Morcille River and since 2011 on the Ardières River. Additional data on the ecotoxicological and ecological impacts of pesticides on aquatic microbial communities and macroinvertebrates has also been recorded in both rivers since 2005.The 'Site Atelier Ardières-Morcille Dataset' described here combines rainfall and stream water height measurements at gauged stations with concentrations of two trace elements and nine pesticides (mainly herbicides, fungicides and some of their metabolites) in both the Ardières and Morcille rivers. All contaminant concentration data showed spatial and temporal variability in water quality associated with pesticide use and rainfall patterns. This long-term monitoring framework made it possible to estimate the persistence of two herbicides (diuron and norflurazon) after legislation banning them. It took 4 years for diuron and more than 10 years for norflurazon concentrations to fall below 0.1 μg/L. Concurrent biological data showed a gradient of impacts consistent with chemical anthropogenic pressure, and rapid recovery of phototrophic microbial communities after the diuron ban. Finally, monitoring data on pesticide transport in a grassed strip set on a slope of the Morcille catchment confirmed that vegetative filter strips can effectively reduce diuron fluxes in surface runoff (>80% abatement) and infiltration water (>70% abatement). The full dataset offers a valuable resource for the validation of hydrological models and the development of global approaches to better understand the pressure-transport-exposureimpact chain and aquatic community resilience at the small catchment scale.

Graphical Diagnostics for Threshold Selection in Fitting the Generalized Pareto Distribution

“…In this study, we use the ardieres data frame containing flood discharges over a period of 33 years of the Ardières river at Beaujeau. The source data is taken from the POT package in R by [30,33] and [35]. This data was used because it was used in some applications of extreme values, in addition to not obtaining real data for extreme value phenomena.…”

Drainage network analysis to comprehend structural sediment (dis)connectivity in wine-growing Beaujolais (France)

“…1). This catchment has been studied for diffuse pesticide pollution by the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE) for more than 30 years (Gouy et al, 2021). The catchment is characterised by an altered hercynian crystalline basement of A c c e p t e d M a n u s c r i p t mainly porphyric biotite granite (Frésard, 2010;Party, 1996;Pomerol, 1984;Wahl, 2017) with three types of soils having been identified: (1) sandy soils developed on altered granite on the upper slopes, (2) shallow clay-based soil on the right bank of the river, and (3) sandy soils on lower slopes and thalwegs.…”