Irrigation system in the Vega of Granada: Maintenance of an agricultural landscape from the irrigation water sharings

The region known as Vega of Granada is set up from irrigation systems which supply water from springs and rivers to provide irrigation to farming plots, thus generating a vast agricultural landscape of great significance for the socioeconomic history of the province. Irrigation systems are administered by irrigator groups sharing the same water collecting, and who conceive water as a scarce common weal. This has lead to the establishment of resource exploitation strategies that aim an equitable sharing of these resources and their non depletion. Such customary strategies are the basis that support the Vega of Granada agricultural landscape. The aim of this paper is analyzing these sources of water exploitation and management focusing on the irrigation system of the Velillos river.