Overcoming water shortages in Provence and the Côte d'Azur Developer, owner, and operator Consulting engineers

Overcoming water shortages in Provence and the Côte d'Azur

SCP was created in 1957 by three territorial authorities, Bouches du Rhône and Var County Councils and Marseilles City Council, to bring and distribute water throughout the Provence and Côte d'Azur Region, a major impediment on its development. The three councils pooled their water rights and appointed SCP to develop water engineering in the Provence Region. The main feature of this development involves the construction and operation of the Canal de Provence. SCP capital comes from both public and private sources. Its shareholders are the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regional Council, the Councils of the Bouches du Rhône, Var, Vaucluse, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence and Hautes-Alpes, the City of Marseille, the Chambers of Agriculture and regional offices of the Crédit Agricole Bank in the 5 above-listed counties, and the national offices of the Crédit Agricole Bank and the Caisse des Dépôts et de Consignations bank.

Developer, owner, and operator

The financial assistance of the State and the Region has enabled SCP to develop water engineering in the Provence Region for the local councils who entrusted it with its original assignment. The major hydraulic facilities mobilize over 250 million m3 water storage capacity in seven dams. These facilities also include some 150 km of hydraulic tunnels, 120 km of large canals, 34 major control structures, 73 storage reservoirs, 580 km of trunk mains, 4200 km of distribution pipes, 77 pumping and booster stations, 221 remote transmission stations and 52,000 delivery points. The Canal de Provence and the other schemes implemented by SCP irrigate a total of 74,000 hectares, that is to say over one third of the area farmed. They also supply drinking water or raw water requiring only elementary treatment to 400 industrial plants and about a hundred towns and villages. The shortage of water in the Provence region means that SCP has to share the available resource equitably between its customers, at all times and without wastage. To achieve this, SCP has developed expertise at the forefront of SCADA technology. Today it is recognised as one of the world leaders in automated operation of major hydraulic schemes. The salient features of SCP are its autonomy and flexibility in the design, implementation and operation of its own projects in France. Projects are taken in hand right from the preliminary technical and economic analysis. Engineers and technicians from the company carry out all the detailed studies and the basic engineering designs, and also draw up the tender documents covering all technical aspects. SCP is responsible for works supervision and uses its own staff to operate all the structures. In this way the responsibilities normally assigned separately to consultant engineers and to operating companies are jointly assumed by one and the same organisation. Thanks to this, operational improvements, maintenance and trouble-shooting procedures can be continuously applied on new projects. Sound accounting is a priority: income (from water and electricity sales) and outgoings (state subsidies and loans) must balance, and this calls for constant and careful management.

Consulting engineers

Apart from its main role as conveyor and supplier of water, the engineering expertise developed by SCP in such fields as studies for the development and application of O&M constitute essential components of its overseas interventions as engineering consultant providing technical assistance and project development.
SCP is certified ISO 9002 by the French Quality Assurance Association [AFAQ] covering all its activities and ISO 14001 for its Environmental Management System.
Since 1972, SCP has worked abroad as consulting engineers (technical, economic and financial studies, works supervision, specialist expertise), or as an operator-manager (audits of organisations, water tariffs, training and assistance to irrigation organisations). SCP's main contributions have been in the following countries :
	Algeria	Argentina
	Bolivia *	Brazil
	China *	Egypt
	Greece *	Haiti *
	India *	Indonesia
	Iraq	Italy
	Jordan *	Kosovo
	Lebanon *	Libya
	FYROM	Malaysia
	Morocco *	Mauritania *
	Oman	Portugal
	Spain	Sri-Lanka *
	Syria	Thailand
	Tunisia *	USA
	Former USSR *
In countries identified by asterisk SCP is currently working on on-going projects.