CONGRESS ON INDUSTRIAL & AGRICULTURAL CANALS Lleida, september 2-5 2014 CANALS AND POWER PRODUCTION IN THE HISTORY OF CATALONIA Eusebi Casanelles Dr. Industrial Engineer Vice-president del Patronat del Museu de la Colonia Vidal eusebi.casanelles@ Abstract Catalonia has had a significant culture of water. The construction of canals began in the Middle Ages both in the part occupied by the Muslims that occupied part of its territory for four centuries, as in Christian. The main goal of the Catalan medieval hydraulics canals was to supply water to the mills than for irrigation. At the beginning of the 19 th century the lack of coal in the country stimulated the use of water as a source of energy to run factories and many canals were built for this purpose. One century later water was the most important source of energy to produce electricity Water, culture and mills Catalonia is a mountainous country. Its climate is the typical of the Mediterranean area, with dry summers and an equinoctial rainfall trend on spring and autumn, although this distribution is not homogeneous throughout the territory. In the Pyrenees and pre-Pyrenees, the mountain chains where the major rivers are risen, rains are more intense in spring while, in the rest of the territory, they are more intense in September-October. Hydraulically, the territory is divided in two basins: (1) the Ebro River basin, major tributaries of which are the Segre, the Noguera Ribagorçana and the Noguera Pallaresa rivers and (2) the so-called Mediterranean basin, which includes many rivers of lower flow, amongst which the Ter and the Llobregat are the major ones. Historically, it was in the latter basin where water power was exploited the most, until the beginning of the 20th century, when the enormous power production possibilities of the Ebro’s tributaries were spotted. Climatic irregularities and the territory’s topography have led throughout history, especially since Roman times, to the construction of many hydraulic infrastructures in order to collect, accumulate and distribute water. Groundwater, which is abundant, has been exploited for those reasons, and so has water from the rivers. Water has been transported to irrigate rainfed lands, to the cities to supply population or simply to a place with enough level difference to obtain energy for mills, which were very abundant in Catalonia in the past. These activities have involved digging wells and mines, the construction of tanks, ponds, reservoirs and canals, with their corresponding tunnels and aqueducts, scattered throughout the territory. 1