Brown water flow
“The Moors, as it were, sowed their water. Because through the irrigation canals, the water also sinks further into the ground. This fills underground water sources, which in turn provide water to rivers,” explains José María Civantes, history lecturer at the University of granada. He has been researching the irrigation system in Andalusia for some time, and started a working group that explores the ancient waterways. maps.
Civantes: “In the 1970s, the canals were forgotten. Agriculture was modernized, less labour-intensive, people left the abandoned regions. Part of the network has now been restored, but you could extract a lot more water .”
In the seven centuries of Moorish times, the irrigation system even extended as far as the Alhambra palace in the capital Granada. But even in the period after that, the canals were used for centuries and Muslims converting to Christianity expanded the system even further. “But you see they’re actually being rediscovered now, through all the studies we’ve done,” Civantes says. “In the climate change we’re dealing with, they help ditches to at least mitigate the effects of desiccation.”
For hours on end, the scraping of the volunteer group excavating the old water channel in the mountains is heard. Eventually a brown water flow starts. It flows faster and faster downwards, in the direction of the valley. The biologist Sergio Cortes looks with satisfaction at the flowing water. It is a green revolution, even though it was conceived hundreds of years ago.
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