The example of La Réunion

Providing access to high-quality drinking water

High rainfall, maximum UV exposure and water quality that varies at different altitudes: there are many obstacles to providing those who live on the island of La Réunion with high-quality drinking water. Our Stereau and Cise Réunion teams respond with a wide range of technologies to overcome these challenges and guarantee the availability of the island’s water resources.

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Ensuring long-term access to high-quality drinking water

Challenged by violent rainfall during the rainy season and severe droughts during the summer months, La Réunion is particularly exposed and vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Aging water supply pipelines further complicate the daily task of supplying residents with fresh drinking water and add to this context of emergency. For the past 15 years, our subsidiaries Stereau and Cise Réunion have been applying their expertise in water engineering and water treatment to ensure that those who live on La Réunion have permanent access to high-quality drinking water. But this is a daunting challenge, because water quality varies significantly across the island’s many and varied microclimates. With very little mineral content, it can also - depending on the level of rainfall - contain high concentrations of suspended solids and micropollutants.

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Stereau at work in Le Tampon

In the commune of Le Tampon, the teams of Stereau have designed and built the Leveneur drinking water treatment plant, which will soon be commissioned and supplying 30,000 m³ of water per day to the area’s community of 75,000 residents. To guarantee regular supplies of high-quality water all year round in a location famous for the turbidity of its water reserves, Stereau was also commissioned to build two 5,000 m³ reservoirs on the Leveneur site, one for raw water, and the other for treated water as the basis for developing a water pre-treatment system tailored to local needs.

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Significant local constraints

The Stereau teams once again demonstrated their adaptability in upgrading the Bras des Calumets drinking water production facility, where the technologies implemented were carefully selected to cope with local weather conditions. So drinking water at Bras des Calumets is now treated with a special combination of sodium carbonate and calcium fluoride, before sand filtration and disinfection using UV and chlorine gas reactors.

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To find out more about Saur's actions on the ground, consult the 2022 edition of our integrated report
2022 Integrated Report