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Draining of the Ivars lagoon

Ivars d'Urgell, Pla d'Urgell, Lleida

1 Villages · 1 Monuments · 1 Nature · 2 Activities · 1 Historical milestones

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Draining of the Ivars lagoon

Historical milestone · Ivars d'Urgell, Pla d'Urgell, Lleida

Image of Ivars d'Urgell, not of the place itself.

The estany d'Ivars, the largest lagoon in Catalonia along with that of Banyoles, occupied an endorheic basin of millennial origin which, shallow and brackish, would dry up completely in some summers. The construction of the Canal d'Urgell in 1861 brought in waters from the Segre that turned it into a much larger wetland -135 hectares, up to 2,500 metres long and 3.8 deep- and into a centre of the social and economic life of the neighbouring villages, with duck hunting and highly prized eel fishing. A first attempt at draining it in 1914 failed due to the opposition of irrigators, but in 1951, as part of the Sanitation Project and with the aim of gaining farmland, the lagoon was drained against popular will.

1951

Photo: jordi domènech (CC BY-SA 3.0)

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