Irrigation engineering in Spain and how it has changed the country’s landscape
Categoria dell'articolo: Short communications
Pubblicato online: 06 apr 2017
Pagine: 211 - 229
Ricevuto: 13 giu 2016
Accettato: 26 ott 2016
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/euco-2017-0013
Parole chiave
© by José M. García-Asensio
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 License.
Irrigation is a rural development technique widely extended in, and affecting the landscape of, areas of Mediterranean climate. In Spain, irrigation accounts for ⅔ of all water use. The country has over 3.5 million ha of irrigated land, some 15% of all its agricultural land. Valley bottoms and riversides are the landscapes most commonly associated with irrigation in Spain, followed by peninsular coastal and interior plains, basins, hollows and depressions. This paper describes the engineering infrastructures associated with irrigation, the structures involved in water capture, transport, storage and distribution, and water use and drainage in the irrigated lowlands of Spain. It also examines the environmental impact of such water use. Several descriptors are proposed to describe its association with the landscape.