About us

The laboratory "Water and Wastewater Management" (GEA) is a department of the French Institute of Forestry, Agricultural and Environmental Engineering (ENGREF). GEA is member of the Research Group G-Eau (Water management, Actors, Uses) with also the CEMAGREF, the CIRAD and the IRD.

The GEA works on drinking water and wastewater utilities. It aims at helping the managers of these services and also the authorities in charge of them improving their management, thanks to a better knowledge of economical and juridical aspects. We can already notice that the context of this type of utilities is changing, with the development of competition and an evolution of the public regulation system.

At the beginning, GEA was working on french services developing tools to evaluate the performance of these services. Progressively, it decided to involve in the field of foreign services, studing its sustainabilty in order to improve its management.

Methods are now developed to evaluate economical, environmental and ethical sustainability of drinking water and wastewater utilities in Europe while this type of services is living a great changing, especially in its territorial organisation and in its regulation system.

In developing countries, a work began on how to improve water access to poor people, especially in medium size cities and rural areas. More specifically, GEA has started a work that will evaluate the impact of water access on economical development of population. The results will be used by International Financing Institutions in order to improve decision criterias of projects financing.