Scarpe
The Scarpe is a Rivière of the area Nord-Pas-de-Calais which takes its source with Berles-Monchel, close to Aubigny-in-Artois. It measures 112 kilometers of which the two-thirds are channel ized (starting from Arras). Scarpe river is thrown to Arras in Scarpe channeled at an altitude of 55 meters. It crosses in particular Douai, Marchiennes, and joined the the Scheldt with Mortagne-of-North.
Current hydrography thus described probably results from a anthropic capture of the Early middle ages (at the 10th century. Scarpe of Arras belonged before to the upper part of the course of the Satis . The high course of Satis was diverted via the channel of Vitry-in-Artois towards the town of Douai and small the " Scarpe de Douai" , by the count de Flandres, probably to make the latter navigable. The lower course is borrowed today by the Sensée. The toponym " Scarpe" extended to the downstream from Vitry-in-Artois only tardily, towards the end of the Bas the Middle Ages, and the memory of the capture was erased until its description, on geological evidence, by Jules Ladrière at the 19th century.
Before this capture, the catchment area of Scarpe merged with the Plaine of Scarpe between the areas of the Pévèle and the Ostrevent. It was limited to approximately 770 km ² and the Escrebieux was probably the principal contributary.
Scarpe has many small affluents, upstream of the capture (the Ugy, the Crinchon, the Fontaines of Hertain) and downstream (the Escrebieux, the Courant of Coutiches, the Running of the Hospital, the Elnon…). The latter have low flows but move in a centripetal way towards broad the Plaine of Scarpe. The channel of Scarpe, is doubled by the channels of the Traitoire and the Décours which drain the plain.
Its diagram of installation and management of water is under development.
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