El manejo del agua en las cuencas de alta montaña del Parque Nacional de Sierra Nevada (Sur de España)Un ejemplo ancestral de Gestión Integral del Agua

  1. Sergio Martos-Rosillo 1
  2. Antonio González-Ramón 1
  3. Ana Ruiz-Constán 1
  4. Carlos Marín-Lechado 1
  5. Carolina Guardiola-Albert 1
  6. Francisco Moral Martos 2
  7. Jorge Jódar 1
  8. Antonio Pedrera Parias 1
  1. 1 Instituto Geológico y Minero de España
    info

    Instituto Geológico y Minero de España

    Madrid, España

    ROR https://ror.org/04cadha73

  2. 2 Universidad Pablo de Olavide
    info

    Universidad Pablo de Olavide

    Sevilla, España

    ROR https://ror.org/02z749649

Journal:
Boletín geológico y minero

ISSN: 0366-0176

Year of publication: 2019

Volume: 130

Issue: 4

Pages: 729-742

Type: Article

DOI: 10.21701/BOLGEOMIN.130.4.008 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR

More publications in: Boletín geológico y minero

Sustainable development goals

Abstract

Sierra Nevada is the main mountain range in the southern Iberian Peninsula and has been catalogued as a Biosphere Reserve (1986), a Natural Park (1989) and a National Park (1999). Apart from its ecological, geomorphological and landscape singularities, there are other remarkable hydrological, historical and cultural features, such as the ancestral water management performed at the headwaters of the rivers. A dense network channels excavated in the ground, the so-called acequias de careo, allows the derivation of melt water from of the river water head towards the higher zone of the hillsides, where it infiltrates. It slowly flows down through the weathered zone of the metamorphic rocks, until reaching the rivers and springs used for supply and irrigation. This water management system, implemented since the Muslim conquest of southern Spain (VIII century), has led to a remarkable transformation of the landscape, where agricultural terraces and pastures coexist with ecosystems of high ecological value. This paper describes the careos water-management technique in a pilot basin, the Bérchules watershed, recently studied during 2014 and 2015 by the Geological Survey of Spain. Migration, the abandonment of cultivated lands and, consequently, of the acequias de careo are affecting the dynamics of the rivers, endangering the delicate balance reached between man and nature in the Sierra Nevada, after many centuries of harmonious coexistence.

Data source: Dialnet