Valencia's irrigation system is now a model for sustainable farming

The BBC page also links to the intricate and fairly ancient irrigation system used in the Swiss mountain region of Valais.<p>Legend has it that when God created the Valais, he asked the local farmers whether they wanted rain, or whether they would take care of their own irrigation. After a brief consultation, they announced that, with all due respect, irrigation was too serious a matter to entrust to a bloody foreigner…

My home as a child had been a duck farm. My father converted it to an orange trees (and all kind of vegetables) orchard, it was 3k m2 (that&#x27;s almost eight acres) so we had plenty of space.<p>It was hypnotic watching the sharecropper, with just a hoe, directing the water from the reservoir to all the trees, lettuces, watermellons... I wonder if those skills were transmited from generation to generation for centuries. With modern irrigation systems, I guess they&#x27;re being lost.

I don&#x27;t want to belittle this piece of journalism but water-channel-based irrigation systems were already being used by Romans in Spain.<p>In the case of Valencia, there&#x27;s even archaelogical evidence of pre-Roman irrigation systems [1][2].<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;templersdeburjassot.wordpress.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;05&#x2F;20&#x2F;breve-apunte-historico-de-los-regadios-en-el-reino-de-valencia-iberos-y-romanos&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;templersdeburjassot.wordpress.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;05&#x2F;20&#x2F;breve-a...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mapa.gob.es&#x2F;ministerio&#x2F;pags&#x2F;Biblioteca&#x2F;fondo&#x2F;pdf&#x2F;9999_3.pdf" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.mapa.gob.es&#x2F;ministerio&#x2F;pags&#x2F;Biblioteca&#x2F;fondo&#x2F;pdf...</a>

This story reminds me of the central WA state where I grew up. They had a similar network of canals. It&#x27;s the largest irrigation network in the US (according to the internet). Unlike the one in the article, most farmers in central WA aren&#x27;t flooding their fields directly from the canals. Many of the farmers running at any sort of scale opt for a center-pivot (circle) to water their field. These machines end up being the most water (and labor) efficient way to water a field of 100+ acres.<p>I worked at for an irrigation supplier for a few years and got to see all the ins-and-outs of how these machines work. The supporting infrastructure is pretty impressive too. The pumps, pipes, valves, and electrical panels that drive these machines is an engineering marvel.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Columbia_Basin_Project" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Columbia_Basin_Project</a>

Valencia&#x27;s a cool place to visit, they did a number of interesting things in the last few decades:<p>* after a devastating flood in the 1950s they &quot;moved&quot; the river out of the city and they used the original channel to build a 10km long park with tons of infrastructure for sports and recreation: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;metropolismag.com&#x2F;projects&#x2F;how-valencia-turned-crisis-river-into-park&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;metropolismag.com&#x2F;projects&#x2F;how-valencia-turned-crisi...</a><p>* they have a network of docked city bikes with ~300 stations around the city. Docked bikes are not perfect, but don&#x27;t cause the mess that dockless bikes do. It costs €30&#x2F;year and every ride is free for 30min. (it&#x27;s not unique, as other cities have similar networks, but it&#x27;s really well executed)<p>* their Ciudad de las artes y ciencias (City of arts and science) is a beautiful complex with a museum, cinema, oceanographic park and iirc there&#x27;s even a night club somewhere there. Really cool place for tourist and local residents to hang around: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;City_of_Arts_and_Sciences" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;City_of_Arts_and_Sciences</a>

&quot;Production in La Huerta is basically intended for self-consumption and the local market,&quot;<p>No wonder it has continued throughout time. It&#x27;s once we try to farm intensively that we see issues.<p>So this is a model for sustainability. How does this scale to replace the industrial farming?

&gt;Invented by the region&#x27;s Moorish rulers 1,200 years ago<p>I have no problem with stating that it was built, or implemented by Moorish rulers. I have a problem with &#x27;invented&#x27;.<p>Waterways specifically for irrigation, in near-identical (and many better) designs have been around significantly longer than 1,200 years. The Romans, Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Incas, Mayans, and so on. Go to central Arizona in the USA to see about 700 miles of irrigation canals built by the Hohokams. Or, check out the Assyrians&#x27; inverted siphon for the Nineveh Aqueducts.

Is there any material difference from what’s been described in the article, and the canal irrigation that happens around much of the western US? I have access to canal water myself and it’s used mainly for flood irrigation in these parts.

This kind of irrigation is terrible if you are trying to conserve water.<p>As temperatures rise places that use aqueduct and flood irrigation will have to contend with the loss of water to evaporation during transport.<p>Fortunately people out on the American plains have this figured out and better technologies exist. The problem is convincing farmers and law makers in areas that have traditionally had abundances of water to change their ways.

For anyone interested in irrigation systems, whether for farming or other things, you should check out Monty Don&#x27;s &quot;The World in 80 Gardens&quot; from the BBC. Although it&#x27;s readily available on YouTube as well.<p>This episode is about Morocco&#x2F;Spain&#x2F;Italy: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=CbkoiWgvP0M" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=CbkoiWgvP0M</a>

The author does a lot to romanticise the old traditions of a town that seeminly hasn&#x27;t kept up with modern times.<p>Truth is, there&#x27;s 2 types of people that go to the central market, old people and tourists.<p>Everyone else drives to Mercadona, a supermarket like any other, in their Mercedes. You can also buy fantastic veges and fruits there but without dealing with 5-6 merchants to get what you need.

This reminds me of the canals of the Sumas prairie in the Fraser valley. Do those serve the same irrigation purpose or are they for drainage only, does anyone know?

Isn&#x27;t the word &quot;fila&quot; from Latin for &quot;file, queue, rank&quot; not from Arabic?

Only men allowed, is that a product of the colonial culture that created it, by chance, or a later added rule? It&#x27;s interesting to note all the impacts of colonial rule by Muslim Arabs over Spain. I&#x27;ve always wondered how much of Spanish colonialism is an emulation of their colonization by Arab Muslims.