Early arab water technology in southern spain

Abstract

This paper describes many of the ways by which the Arabs in southern Spain, during their eight hundred years occupation. raised, stored and distributed water without pumps, reservoirs or pipelines. The technology which they used in their water mills was simple but ingenious and differed from that evolving in Britain at that time. Using contourhugging open channels, the Arabs transferred snowmelt from the sierra over long distances, to recharge the ground above the mountainside villages and sustain the spring flows to their fountains through the year. © 2004 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.