- An ancient Moorish invention could protect Spain from a future of severe droughts.
- The irrigation channels run through 15,000 miles of Spain’s mountainous provinces.
- As generational knowledge dwindles, the number of people who know how these channels operate continues to decline.
A 1,000-year-old Moorish invention may be the answer to Spain’s increasing heat problem.
A chain of over 15,000 miles of acequias throughout the mountainous region of Spain is being restored as a low-cost way to bring water to crops during a time of increasing heat and droughts. Acequias are a network of irrigation canals set up by the Moors that bring snowmelt down from the mountains and distribute it to the land below.
Experts believe that the ancient solution will help spread water throughout the arid region of Spain and maintain agrarian practices. The only problem is that few people know how acequias work.
As Spain moved toward an agricultural model that emphasized reservoirs and many in rural communities in Spain moved to cities, knowledge of the acequias system dwindled. Only a handful of people in these communities know how to restore the acequias.
Historians and conservationists are working together to restore these systems and build back the generational knowledge required to operate them.
