The historical use of water in dry Catalonia: an analysis based on the ethnographic heritage of the municipality of Torrebesses in the Vall Major (Segrià-Garrigues)

Abstract

This paper shows, based on the preserved heritage of Torrebesses’ territory and from a historical perspective, that the inhabitants of the Garrigues’s drylands have developed over time strategies to use rainwater, groundwater and surface water, that have enabled a diverse kind of agricultural production and downstream activities and have made possible the survival of a relatively dense net of local communities.