Friday 26 December 2014

Water

Water wars are here.

Gaia has a sustainable water management system, delicately balanced, with forests, winds, rain, filtration, aquifers, springs, streams, rivers, sea . . . a cycle . . .

Humans chop down forests, poison rivers and the sea, use clean water to flush toilets, wash cars, fill swimming pools and, in Andalusia, once home to a huge oak forest, long destroyed to make the ships which colonised South America and to fight the British, who also chopped down vast forests for empire and wars over empires, huge amounts of precious water are sprayed on golf courses, of which there are hundreds.

Here, in the arid area behind Almeria, where the desert scenes for "Patton, Lust for Glory" were shot, the town up the valley dammed the river, refused to share the water.

When I was on my first adventure, 40+ years ago, I had a lift from an American actor, who said he would try to get me extra work on that film. I hung around Almeria a few days, but it never worked out.

There are springs, linked to irrigation systems and to fuentes, which translates loosely as fountains.

Water rights are linked to land up here. The mains supply has long been promised, but the locals are reluctant to pay for metered water, when they have the land and water to pump into the house.

Corrupt local officials promise to sort it, but nothing happens. Allegedly.

Svein and Maureen bought their house from a very dodgy agent called Gordon, who separated the land with water rights from the house. Hence the need to fetch water in containers from the fuente two kilometres away, pour it into a barrel and pump it up to holding tanks, from which gravity feeds it into the house.

It makes you careful with water.

This scenario plays out internationally too. The Nile running through Sudan to Egypt, the Himalayas, source of the great rivers of India, Bangladesh, Pakistan. And so on.

In Tamera, the community in the Alentejo region of Portugal, they are addressing the issue. Sharing their findings at government and international level.

In expat land, there seem obvious solutions unexplored. Catchment from rooves (it does rain sometimes); grey water re-use for flushing. And whilst we are on sustainable solutions, there are few solar panels considering the sunshine, and shit is collected from cesspits, instead of composted in situ. Perhaps jobs for the next generation of expats, who may learn Spanish, breed with the locals, keep off the booze a bit . . . judgemental? Stereotypes sometimes hold true, it's an observation, that's all.

Reforestation of the desert between here and Almeria would be helpful too. Sounds like a potential EU project to me.

1 comment:

  1. http://www.andalucia.com/history/spainsmoorishhistory.htm
    I saw examples of the now dis-used ancient water courses on a residential component of my studies when I was taking my part-time MSc in Environmental management Practice with Durham University.
    Cheers,
    Alan

    "THE MOORS IN ANDALUCÍA - 8TH TO 15TH CENTURIES
    By Robina Lambert Lowry & Fiona Flores Watson
    The Moors ruled parts of Andalucia from the early 8th until the late 15th centuries – 800 years of history. Their legacy, especially in terms of what we can see today, was considerable, with two of the region’s most important and most-visited monuments – the Alhambra and the Mezquita – dating from Moorish times. Both are UNESCO World Heritage sites.
    These tribes from North Africa left an outstanding cultural legacy behind them in Al-Andalús, or Andalucía as it is today. This complex mix was inextricably woven into that of the myriad civilisations (see Prehistory and the Romans) which had previously invaded and settled here.
    The influence of the Moors’ culture reached out far beyond Spanish borders, with the mighty cities of Sevilla, Córdoba, Granada and Cádiz being recognised throughout Europe and North Africa as centres of great learning, renowned for magnificent art and architecture, and homes to eminent scientists and philosophers. In the countyside, they also left behind sophisticated irrigation systems, testament to their skilled agriculture, and many pueblos blancos – white-painted hillside villages.
    In the beginning of the 8th century the Umayyads arrived from Damascus and settled in Córdoba where they established their capital in exile. Towards the end of the 11th century the Almoravids followed by the Almohads came from northern Africa and at the beginning of the 13th century the Nasrids began their 250-year reign in Granada. When the kingdom of Granada was finally conquered by the Christians at the end of the 15th century the last Nasrid ruler, Boabdil, was exiled briefly to the Alpujarras before finally leaving Al-Andalús for Fez in Morocco.
    As the distance between the cities was so vast, numerous towns and villages were built along the well-trodden routes connecting one to another. They acted not only as staging posts, but were also settled by generations of caliphs and emirs, their families and entourages, who built the alcazabas (citadels), fortalezas (fortresses) and castillos (castles) that can still be seen today. Some have fallen into ruin, others have been restored to a lesser or greater degree, but all bear testimony to a fascinating period in the history of Spain.
    The irrigation systems laid out by the Romans, which had fallen into disuse after their departure at the end of the 4th century, were recovered and extended by the Moors who brought water into the very heart of urban buildings through a complex network of wells and channels, fountains and pools. The water was not only for domestic purposes, it was used comprehensively in public squares, patios and private gardens, and also for their hammans or public baths, still to be seen in many provincial capital cities throughout Andalucía.
    After they left, Moorish history and culture was all but ignored, both by the Arab world and by Europe, the same fate facing the traditions and culture of the Jews who were expelled around the same time. Relegated to beautiful legends in the annals of history, those eight centuries of Spain’s past were not considered sufficiently important to study or even remember. However, this legacy has now been brought back to life again by organisations such as the Fundación Legado Andalusí (www.legadoandalusi.es) and the Fundación Tres Culturas (www.tresculturas.org )."

    ReplyDelete