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The Moorish invention that tamed Spain's mountains
- noduerme 4y agoThese are cool. One of these gravity-driven miniature aqueducts still flows from the Sierra Nevada directly between Plaza Larga and las Pesas at one of the highest points in the Albaycin in Granada, and (I've heard) is accessible through the basements of the buildings there. It's extremely impressive that someone engineered running water to a hill that high from an even higher source miles away across deep ravines, and that it still flows.
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- zeristor 4y agoI don’t know why I find water harvesting so fascinating, nifty use of aquifers. There was a civilisation in the Sahara that had tunnels in the mountain that provided water, I imagine they ran dry. Persia had (has?) underground tunnels that convey water to farmland. With the increasing amount of heavy rain fall I’m not sure how much of that can be caught and sequestered. This was made all the more apparent when there was a sudden downpour in London some years back and the river Fleet, sewer as it is now backed up into the office’s canteen.
- pfdietz 4y agoIt wasn't in the Sahara, but the civilization at Petra (in what is now SW Jordan) was built around sophisticated hydraulic engineering. It eventually collapsed when earthquakes damaged the system beyond their capacity to repair. Being subjugated by Rome didn't help. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSfFq02pK4s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSfFq02pK4s
- User23 4y ago> There was a civilisation in the Sahara that had tunnels in the mountain that provided water, I imagine they ran dry. Was that the Garamantes?[1] [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garamantes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garamantes
- zeristor 4y agoThere must be hundreds of places around the world who could make use of this. How many other ones in Spain have been abandoned? If this was established by the Moors then I would guess other ex-Moor states would have a similar setup.
- asabil 4y agoYes, throughout Morocco’s south east you will find what’s called khettaras (خطارة). They are underground irrigation network that was used to transport water from the Atlas Mountains to regions about 300km away.They were in used until the late 80s as far as I know.
- tough 4y agoWow fascinating, do you have any idea why they stopped being used? Cynical me says to earn some kickback money for building new industrial pipes..
- LargoLasskhyfv 4y agoYou mean like this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Man-Made_River https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Man-Made_River
- zeristor 4y agoNo like this, Qanat: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qanat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qanat
- LargoLasskhyfv 4y agoI answered to the "cynincal me" part of tough (industrial, kickback, etc) ;-)
- lifeisstillgood 4y agoIt seems to me that the acequia are an open and distributed technology, so even when the central authority collapsed, each individual community was able to keep the services running based on that technology, for over a thousand years. Modern irrigation is incredible, modern cities are amazing, modern software connects most humans on the planet. But ... we can learn.
- zeristor 4y agoThere’s a Dutch company called Groasis that had the nifty idea of planting a tree that goes though a bucket of water, the bucket slowly leaks water into the ground. Groasis: https://www.groasis.com/en/technology/how-does-the-reforestation-and-anti-desertification-technology-of-groasis-work https://www.groasis.com/en/technology/how-does-the-reforesta... The mass of the water provides thermal regulation as well as a trickle of water, which can catch rain as well as being topped up manually. The overall goal is for the tree to grow down to the aquifer and then thrive. It helps a lot if there’s work to catch storm runoff into the aquifer. The OP is more about conveying water through the aquifer. Edit: URL added
- zeristor 4y ago“You must plant the rain before you plant a seed or tree!” proclaimed rain farmer Mr. Zephaniah Phiri Maseko of Zimbabwe. By doing just that, he and his family turned a wasteland into an oasis, raised groundwater and well levels even in dry years, reduced flooding in wet years, and enhanced the fertility of the soils. This inspiring story will be shared along with the strategies used, and more importantly, the guiding principles that informed the choice, placement, and implementation of these strategies into a more integrated and productive system. These principles work in any climate experiencing a dry season or drought. And they help us see and act more holistically by asking us questions that direct our attention to important aspects of water and fertility systems we might otherwise overlook. https://youtube.com/watch?v=D6_WZ789lpM https://youtube.com/watch?v=D6_WZ789lpM
- bell-cot 4y agoThe article is about some low-tech but historically effective water-management techniques, brought to Spain by the Muslim conquest (711-721). It walks back very quickly on the headline's claim of "invention". And mentions that similar techniques were independently invented in other parts of the world. Note: "Moor" is both a wretchedly vague exonym, and often a mild ethnic slur.
- usrusr 4y agoI only know the region as a repeat tourist (just came back from my second visit this year), but my impression from this is that locals are quite proud of their cosmopolitan past and "moro" is the simply term they use for their melting pot ancestors of that era. Nothing negative about it at all.
- throwawaybutwhy 4y agoLast name of Matamoros (kills moors) is a thing, and the banner of Santiago defined the nation for centuries.
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- justnah 4y ago>but my impression from this is that locals are quite proud of their cosmopolitan past and "moro" Literally no one is. There is a vast difference between giving credit for a given concept/tool/technique because it's useful, and thinking the locals have sort of ancestral connection with a foreign invader.
- jvican 4y agoDon't speak for a whole country. There are people that are proud of this heritage, like me, and many more, especially in the places where Moorish culture had a stronghold (e.g. Andalusia, C. Valenciana, Murcia, etc.)
- drooopy 4y ago*Moopish invention
- yucky 4y ago^Came here for this, so thank you ;) For anybody that wants to go down a very interesting rabbit hole start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moorish_Science_Temple_of_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moorish_Science_Temple_of_Amer... and wander as needed. Would also recommend the related mystery of this man: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Fard_Muhammad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Fard_Muhammad.
- Turing_Machine 4y agoThe Native Americans in Arizona had developed something similar, long before Europeans showed up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_bajada_canals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arizona_bajada_canals
- cm2187 4y agoHow does that differ from ancien Rome's aqueducts?
- Synaesthesia 4y agoThey're canals which feed into underground aquifers which then feed streams somewhere else.
- alephxyz 4y agoDifferent time scales. Aqueducts are (mainly) used for transporting water. These things are used to store springwater in aquifers so that it slowly trickles out or can be pumped during the dry season.
- narag 4y agoOK, I have nothing bad to say about acequias or irrigation. Having grown up with a big orchad at home I enjoyed watching all those water inventions. Not sure about "Moorish". More like "muslim era" heritage? "Making life possible in one of Europe's driest regions" is misleading though. Eastwards Sierra Nevada you find Almería, where all the Spaghetti Westerns were filmed. It's indeed a desertic zone, just not a very big extension. The hyperbolic headline somehow implies a scale that's not real. In any other direction from Sierra Nevada, there's plenty of rain, water and woods. That system just provides the same for some villages on the drier zones. Edit: OK, people disagree... so be it, but before downvoting, why don't you take a look at Google Earth and see for yourself?
- otikik 4y agoYou are simply wrong and are touching a sensitive point. I grew up in Córdoba (which is west from Sierra Nevada). It gets to 49 centigrades in the summer. It’s not officially considered “a desert”… but it will soon. Temperature has been going up and rain went down. Fewer plants survive each summer. This is a pattern that you see through all the Spanish south. Desertification is a big, visible problem that should not be minimized. I recommend that you apply your own advice to yourself.
- gumby 4y ago> Not sure about "Moorish". IMHO this is one of the few reasonable uses of this term (which has otherwise acquired a negative connotation). The Muslims who colonized Iberia were referred to as Moors because of their Maghreb origin (cf old Mauritania), which itself is the other, technical, use of the term. And given that it’s the BBC I’d give them a pass for correct usage, even if it’s likely few in the audience will get it, with many instead enjoying the derogatory implication.
- oceanplexian 4y agoI'm not sure why BBC finds it so fascinating that the Moors were able to dig ditches and channel water through them 500 years after the Romans had built highly advanced aqueducts in Spain (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqueduct_of_Segovia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqueduct_of_Segovia, https://fascinatingspain.com/place-to-visit/the-best-of/the-other-roman-aqueducts-in-spain/ https://fascinatingspain.com/place-to-visit/the-best-of/the-...). All I can guess is that some civilizations are more in vogue than others. In fact when the Moors invaded Spain, they destroyed much of the Roman infrastructure in a fit of religious fanaticism so a great deal of it has been lost.
- zymhan 4y agoThis is specifically about channeling and storing water _in_ the ground, not piping it above the ground. This also requires far less resources than building an aqueduct.
- ghostDancer 4y agoThey solve different problems. And every culture usually builds over the ones before them. And the Romans were gone several hundreds of years before the Moors conquered Spain and their infrastructures were already decaying or had disappeared, no religious fanaticism there.
- Daishiman 4y agoI'm not sure why you doing a whatabout to the Romans contributes to the conversation.
- throwawaygal7 4y agoThe romans used these systems extensively as well...
- dsmnd 4y agoare theses acequias roman in origin as well? https://www.uv.es/cuadernosgeo/CG15_001_024.pdf https://www.uv.es/cuadernosgeo/CG15_001_024.pdf
- Maursault 4y ago
- WalterBright 4y ago> All these customs are being lost and young people don't want to know about it I don't understand why this knowledge isn't being written down.
- martyvis 4y agoIt does seem like the perfect thing to be documented in a GIS. Presumably you could even use high resolution satellite or drone footage to automate much of the data collection. Interview the caretakers in situ recording GPS locations and times. Perfect project for colleges
- WalterBright 4y agoI bought the Foxfire series of books written by students who went around documenting the old rural ways before that was all lost to time.
- zeristor 4y agohttps://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/C84/foxfire-series https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/series/C84/foxfire-series
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- midislack 4y agoKind of a low-tech or primative aquaduct.
- pazimzadeh 4y agoIs this more similar to the spring-flow tunnel, or the Persian qanat? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qanat#Qanat_vs._spring-flow_tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qanat#Qanat_vs._spring-flow_tu...