Spring time: why an ancient water system is being brought back to life in Spain

A project to restore a 1,000-year-old network of water channels is helping farmers in the Sierra Nevada adapt to the effects of the climate crisis

High in la Alpujarra, on the slopes of the majestic Sierra Nevada in Andalucia, the silence is broken only by the sound of a stream trickling through the snow. Except it is not a stream but an acequia, part of a network of thousands of kilometres of irrigation channels created by Muslim peasant farmers more than a thousand years ago.

The channel begins at an altitude of 1,800 metres (5,900ft) and, fed by the melting snow, for centuries supplied water to the village of Canar and beyond until it fell into disuse in the 1980s through the gradual depopulation of the area.