El regadío sostenible en al-Andalus

Abstract

The Arabs initiated an era of agricultural revival in the eight century which led to an improvement and intensification of irrigation practices throught the Islamic world including al-Andalus. Islamic civilization develops and improves the known agricultural and irrigation techniques from former cultures, mainly of Nabatean or Mesopotamic origin. Irrigation practices were done in harmony with Environment and were integrated in a sustainable way as today is ecommended. So, for instance, the exact amount of water was applied to avoid salinized and waterlogged soils and water was distributed near trees and during the night to reduce evapotranspiration.