| Summary: | Inspired by the ecological footprint, a limnic footprint index is created by the authors of this article to quantify the weight of all water bodies (lakes, ponds, pools, swamps, marshes ...), irrespective of their size and origin (natural or artificial), on a territory. This limnic footprint takes into account both the global problem of the role of water bodies in the climate machine and in all the biogeochemical cycles, but also local questions about the linkages with ecosystems and sociosystems. To do this according a geosystemic limnological geography approach, two spatial criteria that are the extended limnic ratio and the density of water bodies will be considered at an equal level, without preconceived dominance of one of the parameters on the other. Conceived as a tool for representation and comparison, the limnic footprint index is scalable in the sense that it adapts to the overall scope studied. Applied at the European Union level, this index modifies fundamentally the spatial representation induced by the only scientific consideration currently taken of large-scale water bodies and especially of natural origin. In fact, the sensitive issue of water bodies is primarily the sign of a large northwest quarter of Europe.
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