Water

Bringing water to residents

Before wondering how many glasses to drink, you had to be able to get water. In Lutèce, an aqueduct of approximately sixteen kilometers was built in the 2nd century to transport water from the Wissous and Rungis plateaus. This example reminds us that supply already depended on important infrastructure, and not just on proximity to a river.

In the 19th century, changing daily access

In 1850, only one in five Parisian houses had water service, often outside. The transformations carried out under Haussmann then changed the supply of the capital. Called to head the water service in 1854, Eugène Belgrand developed spring catchments which supplied Paris from 1865, as well as the networks necessary for their distribution.

The challenge was to provide quality water continuously, then to evacuate the used water. Access to a daily drink is therefore also built through collective decisions and health work. This story puts into perspective the ease of the current gesture: opening a drinking tap requires an entire system of capture, distribution and control.

In 2010, European benchmarks

In 2010, EFSA published reference values for water, based on several consumption and water balance data. For adults, they concern all the water provided by drinks and food, under moderate conditions of temperature and activity. The shortcut “everyone should drink two liters of pure water” therefore loses an essential part of the context.

These benchmarks are used to situate the intake of a population, not to impose an identical quantity every day on each person. The place of water in a routine must remain linked to diet, activity and living conditions. A graduated bottle can help you observe what you drink, but it does not transform a general recommendation into an exact individual need.