The Loire system
The Loire, the longest French river, flows for 634 miles (1,020 km) and drains the widest area (45,000 square miles [117,000 square km]). It is an extremely irregular river, with an outflow eight times greater in December and January than in August and September. Rising in the Massif Central on Mount Gerbier-de-Jonc, it flows northward over impervious terrain, with many gorgelike sections. Near Nevers it is joined by the Allier, another river of the massif. Within the Paris Basin the Loire continues to flow northward, as if to join the Seine system, but then takes a wide bend to the west to enter the Atlantic past Nantes and Saint-Nazaire. The Loire is artificially joined to the Seine by several canals. The river’s torrential flow, a hindrance to navigation, covers its floodplain with sand and gravel, which has commercial importance. The river is also a source of cooling water for a chain of atomic power stations near its course, which has raised concerns among environmentalists, as have various dam projects along the river. UNESCO designated the valley, between Sully-sur-Loire and Chalonnes, a World Heritage site in 2000. The Garonne system
The Garonne, in the southwest, flows through the centre of the Aquitaine Basin. It is the shortest of the main French rivers, with a length of 357 miles (575 km), and it drains only 21,600 square miles (56,000 square km). Its outflow is irregular, with high waters in winter (due to the oceanic rainfall) and in spring, when the snow melts, but with meagre flows in summer and autumn. Its source is in the central Pyrenees in the Aran (Joyeuse) Valley in Spain, and its main tributaries, the Tarn, the Aveyron, the Lot, and the Dordogne, originate in the Massif Central. With the exception of the Gironde estuary, which is formed by the confluence of the Garonne and the Dordogne and is fully penetrated by the sea, the whole network is generally useless for navigation and is filled with powerful, rapid, and dangerous currents. The Rhône system
In eastern France the direction of the main rivers is predominantly north-south through the Alpine furrow. The Rhône is the great river of the southeast. Rising in the Alps, it passes through Lake Geneva (Lac Léman) to enter France, which has 324 miles (521 km) of its total length of 505 miles (813 km). At Lyon it receives its major tributary, the Saône. The regime of the Rhône is complex. Near Lyon the Rhône and its important Isère and Drôme tributaries, draining from the Alps, have a marked late spring–early summer peak caused by the melting of snow and ice. While this peak is generally characteristic of the river as a whole, it is considerably modified by the contribution of the Saône, of the Durance, and of some tributaries in the Mediterranean south as a result of the fall-winter rainfall peak. Thus, the powerful Rhône has a remarkably ample flow in all seasons. The course of the river and the local water tables have been much modified by a series of dams to generate power and to permit navigation to Lyon. The Rhône also supplies cooling water to a series of atomic power stations. West of the Rhône the Bas Rhône–Languedoc canal, constructed after World War II to provide irrigation, has proved to be an essential element in the remarkable urban and industrial development of Languedoc. East of the Rhône the Canal de Provence taps the unpolluted waters of a Rhône tributary, the Durance, supplying Aix-en-Provence, Marseille, Toulon, and the coast of Provence with drinking water and providing impetus for urban expansion. At its delta, beginning about 25 miles (40 km) from the Mediterranean, the Rhône and its channels deposit significant amounts of alluvium to form the Camargue region. The Rhine system
The Rhine forms the eastern boundary of France for some 118 miles (190 km). In this section its course is dominated by the melting of snow and ice from Alpine headstreams, giving it a pronounced late spring–summer peak and often generally low water in autumn. The Ill, which joins the Rhine at Strasbourg, drains southern Alsace. The Rhine valley has been considerably modified by the construction on the French side of the lateral Grand Canal d’Alsace, for power generation and navigation. The eastern Paris Basin is drained by two tributaries, the Moselle, partly canalized, and the Meuse; the former reaches the Rhine by way of Luxembourg and Germany, and the latter, as the Maas (Dutch), reaches the Rhine delta at the North Sea by way of Belgium and the Netherlands. The smaller rivers and the lakes
North of the Artois ridge, a number of small rivers flow into the Escaut (Flemish and Dutch: Schelde) to reach its North Sea estuary through Belgium. The Somme rises in northwestern France and flows a short distance into the English Channel, and in the southwest the Charente, rising in the western Limousin plateau, and the Adour, rising in the central Pyrenees, flow into the Atlantic.
The French hydrographic system also includes a number of natural lakes of different origin. There are the lakes in depressions carved out by glaciation at the western periphery of the Alps, such as the lakes of Annecy and Bourget, the latter being the largest natural lake entirely within France. Others occur on the surfaces of ancient massifs and include the lakes of the Vosges. Some lakes are caused by structural faults and are lodged in narrow valleys, as are the Jura lakes. There are also lakes of volcanic origin, such as those in the Massif Central (crater lakes and lakes ponded behind lava flows), and regions scattered with lagoons or ponds, either created by coastal phenomena, as on the Landes (Atlantic) and Languedoc (Mediterranean) coasts, or caused by impervious terrain and poor local drainage, as in the Sologne plain. Major artificial lakes include the Serre-Ponçon reservoir, on the Durance River in the Alps, and the Sarrans and Bort-les-Orgues reservoirs, both in the Massif Central. Soils
On a broad, general scale, virtually the whole of France can be classified in the zone of brown forest soils, or brown earths. These soils, which develop under deciduous forest cover in temperate climatic conditions, are of excellent agricultural value. Some climate-related variation can be detected within the French brown earth group; in the high-rainfall and somewhat cool conditions of northwestern France, carbonates and other minerals tend to be leached downward, producing a degraded brown earth soil of higher acidity and lesser fertility; locally this may approach the nature of the north European podzol. The brown earth zone gives way southward to the zone of Mediterranean soils, which in France cover only a limited area. They are developed from decalcified clays with a coarse sand admixture and are typically red in colour because of the upward migration of iron oxides during the warm, dry summers. These soils can be quite fertile.
Over large areas of France, soils have developed not directly from the disintegrated bedrock but from the waste sheets created by periglacial action. These may provide a particularly favourable soil material; most notable is the windblown limon that mantles the Paleogene and Neogene limestone plateaus of the central Paris Basin and the chalk beds to the northwest, the basis of the finest arable soils of France. The quality of the soils depends heavily upon the origin of their waste sheets; sand spreads derived from the granites of the Hercynian massifs, for example, provide only poor soils. The bedrock, however, is not without influence. Soils developed over clays are likely to be heavy and wet, although not necessarily infertile, as in the Jurassic clay and chalk vales of the eastern Paris Basin. Limestone and chalk enrich soils with lime, which is generally favourable, but there is a marked north-south contrast. The limestone areas of southern France tend to be swept almost bare of soil by erosion; the soil then collects in valleys and hollows. The soils of the higher mountains are naturally stony and unfavourable.