Hers-Vif

The Hers-Vif ("Live Hers", as opposed to the slower flowing Hers-Mort, "Dead Hers"), also named Grand Hers or simply Hers, is a 135 km long river in Southern France, right tributary of the Ariège River.

The Hers-Vif rises at a height of ±1500 m near the Chioula Pass of the Pyrenees, approximately 6 km north of Ax-les-Thermes. It is the major tributary of the Ariège into whose right bank it flows 2 km upstream from Cintegabelle in the Haute-Garonne.

It flows some 30 kilometers through the Pyrenees, descending 1100 m to the village of Peyrat which it reaches a piedmont plain. Its valley widens as it traverses the plain, reaching the medieval city of Mirepoix which marks the start of its lower valley.

Several rivers flow into it:

• From the Pyrenees: the Lasset; the Fontaine de Fontestorbes; the Touyre
• From the piedmont plain and hills: the Blau and the Douctouyre;
• From the hills of Lauragais and Razès: the Ambronne and the Vixiège.

Departments and towns along its course are:

• Ariège: Prades, Bélesta, La Bastide-sur-l'Hers, Mirepoix, Mazères
• Aude: Comus, Chalabre
• Haute-Garonne: Calmont

Floods

The Hers is probably known as vif (intense or rapid in this context) because of its sometimes spectacular floods - that of June 16, 1289 having entirely destroyed Mirepoix. More recently, there have been:

• 23 June, 1875: estimated flow rate of 1500 m³/s at Mazères;
• 6 February, 1919: estimated flow rate of 600–800 m³/s at Mazères;
• 19 May, 1977: estimated flow rate of 1070 m³/s at Mazères;
• 16 January, 1981: estimated flow rate of 1100 m³/s at Mazères;
• 11 June, 2000: estimated flow rate of 500 m³/s at Mazères;
• 24 January, 2004: estimated flow rate of 500 m³/s at Mazères.

References

• http://www.geoportail.fr
• The Hers-Vif at the Sandre database