Click the link to read the article on the BBC website (Kira Walker). Here’s an excerpt:
An ancient Moorish invention has been providing water to the Sierra Nevada mountains for more than 1,000 years, making life possible in one of Europe’s driest regions.
For over a millennium, this acequia – from the Arabic as-saqiya, meaning “water conduit” or “water bearer” – has provided irrigation and drinking water to Mecina-Bombarón, enabling survival and agricultural prosperity in the semi-arid environment. The methods used by acequieros – people with expert skills in water catchment and allocation – to tend the channels today differ little from those used in the Middle Ages…The Islamic water management techniques introduced from the east transformed the landscape and agriculture in what was then Al-Andalus. Acequias made life possible for agrarian communities, conserving and distributing scant and seasonal water resources throughout the rugged mountains. In the newly fertile conditions, the abundance of crops introduced by the Moors thrived, among them almonds, artichokes, chickpeas, aubergine (eggplant), lemons, pomegranates, spinach, quince, walnuts and watermelon.
Though ancient, this traditional water management system is sustainable, efficient and resilient. As climate change worsens, the network will become even more important for helping communities in the Sierra Nevada cope and equitably share an increasingly scarce and unpredictable resource. While this ancient system is needed now more than ever, it’s threatened like never before. As traditional irrigation systems struggle with a lack of profitability compared with intensive agriculture and the rural exodus continues, increasingly few people still hold the skills and knowledge required to maintain acequias.
