Junge Wandlungen in der Landnutzung des Ebrodeltas

Abstract

As with almost all Mediterranean estuary areas, the Ebro delta was virtually uninhabited until the middle of the previous century. Only in 1860 did rice cultivation herald the development of colonisation of the area. After almost exactly 100 years, a new phase in the agrarian economy of the Ebro delta was signalled by a sudden departure from rice monoculture to other irrigation crops and intensive animal husbandry. The causes of the departure from rice monoculture are investigated and the changes in cultivation are demonstrated by three sets of field maps from the transition area between the rice lands and the expanding huerta lands. The marked differences in the field patterns of the three mapped areas are used to draw attention to the particular edaphic and socio-economic problems involved in the transformation of the Ebro delta from a rice to a huerta area. All these cultivation changes have, however, a still strongly experimental character. Failures of harvest in the new irrigation crops, caused by the capillary rise of ground water which is near the surface and contains salt, had as a consequence a rapid return to rice growing. Without improvement and extension of the present drainage system in order to lower the groundwater table every departure from rice monoculture is doomed to failure. A massive state scheme is intended to bring about the decisive change. No Spanish agricultural area is better fitted than the Ebro delta to satisfy the growing food needs of the Catalonian area of population concentration, by a varied and intensive agricultural exploitation. In addition it could, because of its good transport situation, develop into one of the main suppliers of early vegetables and fruit for the countries of central and northern Europe.