GULF OF VALENCIA

This case will focus on the irrigation systems located in the floodplains of the Mijares, Turia, Júcar and Serpis rivers. Here we find an important diversity of irrigation systems, but with common territorial characteristics.

It is a highly urbanised area, with an important predominance of part-time agriculture, irrigated areas in decline -due to the lack of generational replacement and urban development pressures-, and with an agrarian property structure characterised by smallholdings. It is also an area characterised by a strong link with exports of vegetables and fruits, mainly citrus.

In the area, in the vicinity of the rivers, we find an important group of traditional irrigation systems (huertas) and communities, supplied mainly with river water and occasionally supplemented with groundwater.

Some of them maintain flood irrigation systems with important heritage and environmental values, while others have already implemented projects to convert to pressurised irrigation and centralised fertigation. These irrigation systems have lost more than 12,000 ha since 1970 due to urbanisation processes.

Upstream in these 4 river axes, we find irrigation systems developed throughout the 20th century through the construction of large canals by the state, in which surface and groundwater are used in combination, and where modernisation processes have been more widespread.

Attached to these large channels, on the margins of the alluvial plains, groundwater irrigation has been developed during the 20th century through individual initiatives or small companies which, in some cases, have been integrated into irrigation communities. These modern irrigated areas have a high degree of technification, and pioneering forms of digitalisation and incorporation of renewable energies.

Some of them have managed to reduce their use of water by 50% after conversion to drip irrigation, reducing their dependence on groundwater.