French Groundwater Levels (Piezometry — Hub'Eau ADES)

Monitor French groundwater levels ("niveau des nappes phréatiques", "piézométrie") from the 23 000+ official piezometric stations of the ADES network, served by the government's Hub'Eau API. For any department or commune: where the monitoring wells are, how high the water table currently sits, its recent history, and whether it is rising, stable or falling.

Groundwater is where droughts actually show up first — months before restrictions make the news.

This actor is free. You only pay your own Apify platform usage.

Related: this actor covers groundwater (aquifers). For surface water use the river levels actor, and for water quality the drinking water actor.

Input

Field	Type	Description
departments	array	Department codes: 59, 84, 2A… Provide this or communes.
communes	array	5-character INSEE commune codes, e.g. 59350.
includeMeasurements	boolean	Fetch recent readings and compute a trend. Default true.
measurementsPerStation	integer	Readings per station, newest first. Default 10.
maxStations	integer	Cap on stations returned. Default 50.

Output

One item per monitoring station, each with a status field (found / not_found / error).

{
  "status": "found",
  "stationCode": "00285X0478/PZ10",
  "stationId": "BSS000CXYT",
  "communeName": "Pecquencourt",
  "communeCode": "59456",
  "departmentCode": "59",
  "departmentName": "Nord",
  "longitude": 3.215696996,
  "latitude": 50.377295867,
  "stationAltitudeM": 18.05,
  "investigationDepthM": 69.0,
  "aquiferNames": ["Craie des vallées de la Scarpe et de la Sensée"],
  "measurementCount": 595,
  "firstMeasurementDate": "1957-12-07",
  "lastMeasurementDate": "2026-06-16",
  "latestLevel": {
    "date": "2026-06-16",
    "waterTableElevationM": 34.15,
    "depthToWaterM": 34.15,
    "qualification": "Correcte",
    "producer": "Syndicat Mixte Escaut et Affluents"
  },
  "trend": { "from": "2025-09-02", "to": "2026-06-16", "changeM": -1.2, "direction": "falling" }
}

• waterTableElevationM — water table elevation in metres above sea level (NGF).
• depthToWaterM — depth to water measured from ground level.

Use cases

• Drought monitoring — track aquifer recharge and depletion across a region, ahead of water restrictions.
• Agriculture — inform irrigation planning where groundwater is the source.
• Construction & geotechnics — check the water table before excavation or foundation work.
• Environmental research — long time series (some stations go back to the 1950s) for climate and hydrology studies.

Limitations & fair use

• Source: Hub'Eau — Niveaux nappes / ADES published by BRGM / Eau France under the Licence Ouverte (open licence, free to reuse).
• Station coverage and update frequency vary by producer: some stations report daily, others are historic and stopped decades ago. Check lastMeasurementDate before treating a station as live.
• trend is a simple first-to-last comparison over the readings you requested — it is an indicator, not a hydrological model. Seasonal cycles matter: compare like-for-like periods.
• The actor retries with backoff and paces requests to stay polite to the source.

More actors by this developer

Reliable data tools built on official French & EU open data APIs — company data, compliance checks, geo and environment: apify.com/vigilant_jasmine