Water Communities on the Northern Slopes of the Guadarrama Mountain Range

Abstract

Guadarrama is a mountain range located in between the provinces of Madrid and Segovia. On the northern slopes, the population settled on the foothills, where, in the medieval period, they built caceras (ditches/canals) to draw water from the streams and irrigate the surrounding fields. This chapter spans two main issues that have yet to be studied in this area: the communal management of the water and the irrigation systems and the ecosystem services provided by the caceras as ecological corridors and biodiversity reserves. The caceras act to slow down the water speed of the streams, widening the effect of these waters and creating a microclimate. The flooding of the lands alongside the ditches not only generates meadows and pastures with ash trees, ensuring a great diversity of species (amphibians, orchids, etc.), but also forms natural water deposits and provides water in the dry season. This is supplemented by the waters that issue slowly from natural springs and feed fountains, both for the supply of the local population and for maintaining the ecosystem. This study looks at the way in which this water management system, handed down from generation to generation, constituted a master class of culture, hydrology, agronomy and the environment that has hitherto been undervalued and now verges on near extinction.