Integral explotation of the spring «Fuente del Ojo» (Cieza-Murcia)
Abstract
For over 500 years, the water of the spring ‘Fuente del Ojo’, managed by the Heredamiento (guild of irrigation), has been used for drinking purposes both for people and for livestock, for household and industrial use, for the monasteries, for leisure and, finally, for irrigating the orchards on the left bank of the river Segura and those within the town of Cieza. Overexploitation of the Ascoy-Sopalmo aquifer, in the last third of the 20th century, caused a decrease in the volume of (flow in) this spring and finally, its drying out. Its integral exploitation has left us an intangible heritage such as rules and ordinances, the peoples’ gossip at the common washing site, the spirit of the baths… that characterize a popular culture. We have also kept a hydraulic heritage such as channelling, water splits, basins, troughs, bathing pools, a mill, a washing site, etc, which were scattered in the traditional and historical irrigation system, in great danger of being lost forever.
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