Mecina: Alberca Grande

We started our exploration at the top of the village today where the era is located. We wound our way through tinaos and narrow alleys out to the edge of town to see an alberca that was listed on the map. Albercas are often rectangular stone water storage tanks located on cortijos. Some of the newer albercas are depressions dug in the ground and lined with heavy rubber sheeting. They aren’t very scenic because the water is usually stagnant and coated with scum, so we didn’t have very high hopes for the alberca in Mecina. Wow, were we wrong! It turned out to be one of the most fascinating water control points we have seen in all our trips to Spain.

The Alberca Grande is indeed grande. It is dug into the ground and is about 4 meters deep at its lowest point. Fed by the Acequia Común which takes water from the Rio Bermejo, today it was full right up to the top. Water does not leave this alberca through the simple drain that is typical, but rather proceeds via a control room through a device called a piquera (beak).

The piquera directs the water into the desired portion of a complex stairway that divides the water into fractions that are sent in one direction or another. This is called a partidor. We’ve seen partidors once or twice before consisting of a single unit of concrete dividers that direct the water. Today’s partidor had at least 12 divisions making it amazingly complex. To think that this was devised in medieval times and has been operating ever since without the use of any electricity to deliver water to fields that would otherwise be unusable is definitely awe-inspiring.

In addition to sharing out the water, the alberca freed the farmer from nighttime irrigation by storing the share of water due a group of irrigators and allowing them to use it at dawn.

It is also worth noting that Mecina and the other nearby villages are more or less the end points of the acequia system that begins in the high sierra and delivers year-round water to areas that would otherwise be too arid to live in. Instead they are filled with trees and birds, gardens and orchards.Read more