Cleaning Aynadamar irrigation channel with 60 volunteers
The documentary, which is available on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eZ-MeBTRGU), shows the work carried out in 2023 by the Biocultural Archaeology Laboratory MEMOLab of the UGR, coordinated by José María Martín Civantos, from the Department of Medieval History and CCTTHH. The Aynadamar irrigation channel has had and still has an enormous historical and identity importance in the city of Granada. It has been documented at least since the 11th century to supply water to the ancient Alcazaba of Granada (Qasabat Garnata), the seat of the Zirid dynasty, and to the present-day Albayzín.
This canal has been one of the axes that have shaped the city of Granada and its surroundings since the Middle Ages. In the 1980s, the final section was definitively abandoned and destroyed on its arrival in the city, with the consequent loss of heritage, landscape and environment. The aim of this project, in addition to the heritage and environmental aspects, has been the recovery for the irrigation of the Cartuja Campus through the Albercón del Moro, thus avoiding the use of drinking water and the consequent regeneration of the landscape, taking advantage of the environmental functions of the traditional irrigation channels.
The work to restore the last section of the Aynadamar irrigation channel, in which more than 500 volunteers and more than 2,000 schoolchildren from different schools in the province took part, has enabled one of the last sections of the channel to be put to use. From now on, the water coming from Fuente Grande (Alfacar), which used to run to the end of the Fargue, has begun to reach the Cartuja Campus (formerly known as the Aynadamar pago) again. However, the scarcity of water due to the overexploitation of the aquifer and the drought are now presenting the irrigation community and the irrigation channel with a new challenge.
Information and photos of the event: https://canal.ugr.es/noticia/presentado-documental-y-mooc-con-motivo-dia-mundial-del-agua/?sfnsn=scwspwa
