Ripoll River

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Ripoll
none The Ripoll in Les Arenes, Castellar del Vallès.
The Ripoll in Les Arenes, Castellar del Vallès.
Country Spain
Region Catalonia
Major cities Sant Llorenç Savall, Castellar del Vallès, Sabadell, Barberà del Vallès, Ripollet, Montcada i Reixac
Length 39.5 km (25 mi)
Discharge at Montcada i Reixac
Source Serra de Granera
 - location Granera, Catalonia, Spain
 - elevation 640 m (2,100 ft)

The Ripoll is a river in the comarca of Vallès Occidental, Catalonia, Spain. It crovers the vast majority of the shire, crossing it from north to south, and flows into the river Besòs, near Barcelona.

Contents

[edit] Geography

The source of the river is located in the Serra de Granera, at 640 m of elevation, and it discharges in Montcada i Reixac, at 35.5 m. It has a length of 39.5 km, with a maximum of 181.5 km, counting its tributaries.[1] It covers the vast majority of the shire of Vallès Occidental, traveling along the municipalities of Sant Llorenç Savall, Castellar del Vallès, Sabadell, Barberà del Vallès, Ripollet and Montcada i Reixac.

As a mediterranean river, it is characterized by an often scant caudal and an irregular regime of floods, which occur from time to time but are usually very sudden and considerable. Along the shire, it crosses alluvial clay terrains, which provoques a strong erosion of the soil, giving place to a canyon in the most part of its route.

[edit] History

Anciently, the river was used by the inhabitants of the shire to irrigate their cultivations. There are records of this kind of usage at least from mid the 10th century, when priests of Sant Llorenç built an irrigation system that is still used today to work the orchards that can be found next to the riverside and mills to produce flour.

With the time, the modernization also reached the shire, and most of the mills were reconverted to produce paper. On the 18th century, the production of paper reached its culminating point.

During the 19th century, the mills of the riverside were reconverted again, this time into textile factories, which lasted until almost the 21th century. Due to the process of colouration of the weaves and other practices related to the textile production, the water of the river suffered a fast decrease of its quality, specially in the late XXth century.

In the late times, because of the Catalonian textile crisis, most of the factories were abandoned or reconverted for other uses, so the river could barely breath again. Recently, there have been initiatives to recover the Ripoll for the enjoyment of the people,[2] building water purifiers and cleaning the riverside, which had came to worst due not only to the factories but also to the shanty towns and self-made houses that immigrants from the southern Spain made when they arrived to the region to work in the factories, in the 1960s.

[edit] 1962 disaster

The Ripoll in Sabadell during a flood, very common in spring, when the Mediterranean climate suffers torrential rains.
The Ripoll in Sabadell during a flood, very common in spring, when the Mediterranean climate suffers torrential rains.

In 1962, the Vallès Occidental suffered a period of strong floods, followed by a period of windfalls, which devastated the shire and caused hundreds of deads. The immigrants from the southern Spain who were extremely poor had settled in the riverside were who suffered the worst consequences.[3]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Source of information: the City council of Sabadell's website: [1], [2]
  2. ^ A good example of this is the project of the Sabadell City Council to build the Parc Fluvial del Ripoll (River Park of the Ripoll): [3]
  3. ^ Websites with pictures and information about the windfalls and floods of 1962: [4], [5], [6]

[edit] External links

Coordinates: 41°56′11″N 2°33′05″E / 41.93639, 2.55139