History of the Hydraulic Heritage of Castellón de la Plana

The conquest and incorporation of these lands to the Àndalus, from the 8th century onwards, led to the progressive installation of Berber human groups of North African origin who resorted to irrigation as a significant way of transforming the immediate environment. But it was from the 10th century, with the Caliphate of Cordoba, that a singular growth of large-scale hydraulic infrastructures took place. One of these was the water catchment of the Millares River and the transformation of the agricultural area on the northern bank of the river thanks to a diversion with two branches or mother ditches: one that circulates at lower altitudes, the Almalafa ditch, and the other that circulates at the highest altitude, the Mayor ditch. Both ditches and their branches embrace an important arc of land between the Millares river in the south and the foot of the Desert mountain range in the north. The hydraulic infrastructure allowed the irrigation of the constructed fields, but also made contributions and recharges to the natural aquifers and in the lake areas. The human settlements follow the route of the main irrigation ditches or are linked to other derived irrigation ditches that usually bear the same name. Despite the construction of conduction infrastructures, only the stands closest to the farmsteads or human settlements of the time were transformed. The most singular and representative hydraulic element of the time is the divider that allowed dividing a flow of water that circulated continuously in two others proportionally.

The feudal conquest of these lands in the 13th century led to the incorporation of the left bank of the Millares River plain into two new feudal lordships. The conquest of an agricultural area with a powerful and highly structured irrigation system allowed the new settler population and their lordships to intensify the transformation of the fields to the maximum and to extend as much as possible the area irrigated with the waters of the Millares River. At the end of the 13th century and the beginning of the 14th century, the extension of the historical orchard of Castellón de la Plana reached the same surface as the current one. All the previous interstices existing between the orchard stands of the different Andalusian farmhouses were transformed, some areas of Alters were transformed that were difficult to irrigate and a process of draining of wetlands from the Donación road towards the sea began. The great transformation also affected the settlement and its places of residence that now happened to be concentrated in only one: the medieval villa of new plant that was raised bordering the Major irrigation ditch. The main transformations in the irrigation system occurred in the distribution and distribution of water. Now there is the same water to irrigate more land, which forced to make water batches, irrigation shifts, and alter the proportions that made the old partidores. The other great change in hydraulic infrastructures is the proliferation of flour mills between the 14th and 15th centuries, reaching a figure of twelve mills, half on the acequia Mayor and the other half on the rows. Almost all of them were flour mills, except for one that worked as a rice mill. Some of these mills survived until the 20th century, but almost half of them were abandoned around 1500.

The irrigated agricultural area remained almost the same, without any growth, but with much use of water flows as a source of energy with the consequent construction of new mills. Three important milestones characterize the period. Firstly, in the 17th century, the construction of the new weir upstream of the river, beyond the confluence of the Rambla de la Viuda; and at the end of the 18th century, on the one hand, the separation of water between Almassora and Castellón de la Plana with the new hydraulic infrastructures derived; and on the other hand, the development of Salvador Catalán's project to build an agricultural colony in the Benadressa district and transform a whole set of dry land into irrigated land. Unfortunately, the project of the agrarian colony did not come to fruition and of the 700 bushels of unirrigated land that it was foreseen to transform, only a hundred ended up being irrigated. The important thing, however, is that the bases and foundations were established for future hydraulic works in the municipality.

A consequence of the separation of waters between the towns of Almassora and Castellón de la Plana, at the end of the previous century was the concentration of a greater flow of water to the initial section of the new irrigation channel and the construction of up to six new flour mills, one of them later converted into the Estrassa paper mill. In this way, the municipality once again had a maximum number of mills, with a total of thirteen. But the most significant hydraulic transformation will be the construction of the Fomento irrigation channel, with the aim of continuing and significantly extending Salvador Catalán's project to the Benadressa district. To the project of transforming 400 hectares of dry land into irrigated land was added that of providing drinking water to the city of Castellón de la Plana, which led to the constitution of the company "Fomento Agrícola Castellonense", which became a public limited company and FACSA. In spite of building a spectacular infrastructure, only a little more than a quarter of the initially planned area was transformed into irrigated land.