Non-federal watercourses subject to the Water Act

The classification of watercourses in the case law(1) is essentially based on the following two criteria: — the presence and permanence of a natural bed originally, distinguishing a watercourse from a canal or a ditch dug by the hand of man but including in the definition a natural stream originally made artificial, subject to proof of this; — the permanence of a sufficient flow for most of the year assessed on a case-by-case basis by the judge on the basis of local climatic and hydrological data and on the basis of presumptions such as the indication of the ‘watercourse’ on an IGN map or the mention of its name on the cadastre. 1: This 22 Feb. 1980 M. FORFILLET req. Nos 15516 and 15517判例法中的水道分类（1）本质上基于以下两项判定标准： — 原始天然河床的存在性与持久性，以此将水道与人工开挖的渠沟区分开来；若能提供相关佐证材料，原本天然形成后经人工改造的溪流亦可纳入水道的定义范畴； — 全年多数时段具备充足径流量的持久性，该判定需由法官结合当地气候与水文数据逐案评估，亦可依托推定规则完成认定，例如法国国家地理研究所（IGN）地图中标注的“水道”标识，或地籍册中提及的水道名称。 1：本案例源自1980年2月22日FORFILLET先生提交的第15516号与第15517号请求