Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Gironde estuary
Summary
The Gironde estuary (ʒɪˈrɒnd , US usually dʒɪˈ- ; estuaire de la Gironde, ɛstɥɛʁ də la ʒiʁɔ̃d; estuari de [la] Gironda, estyˈaɾi ˈde lo dʒiˈɾundo) is a navigable estuary (though often referred to as a river) in southwest France and is formed from the meeting of the rivers Dordogne and Garonne just downstream of the centre of Bordeaux. Covering around , it is the largest estuary in western Europe.
Named after the French département Gironde,
the Gironde estuary is approximately long and 3–12 km (2–7 miles) wide. It is subject to very strong tidal currents and great care is needed when navigating the estuary by any size or type of boat.
Since 2015, the Gironde estuary has been part of the Gironde estuary and Pertuis sea Marine Nature Park.
Within the estuary between the Pointe de Grave at the seaward end and the Bec d'Ambès are a series of small islands.
The Île de Patiras is 200 ha in size with a lighthouse to aid navigation in the estuary. Vines and maize are grown there.
The Île Sans-Pain and Île Bouchaud are now virtually joined due to progressive silting and are referred to as the Ile Nouvelle. They total about 265 ha and are owned by the Conservatoire du Littoral and managed by the Department of the Gironde.
The Île Paté is about 13 ha and in 2006 was privately owned. The island has a historic fort built between 1685 and 1693 as part of the national fortification program masterminded by Vauban. The building is oval in shape, about 12 metres high and was originally equipped with about 30 cannons. Fort Paté, together with Fort Médoc and the ancient citadelle of Blaye, defended the estuary and Bordeaux. During the French Revolution the fort was used as a prison for priests.
In 2006, the Conseil General decided to make the island a ZPENS (zone de pre-emption espace naturel sensible). ZPENS status protects the island from development. If the owner wishes to sell the island, then the Department has a pre-emptive right. After two months the Conservatoire National du Littoral has the next pre-emptive right and then after another 2 months the town of Blaye has a final pre-emptive right to acquire the island.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.