Waters and their use

The waters and their use

The thematic area dedicated to the presentation of the resources of the territory is in line with, and in some ways completes, with that dedicated to the agricultural landscape. Particular attention is paid to water, the wide availability of which, especially in the past, has significantly influenced the characteristics of local agriculture, allowing irrigated crops to be practiced to a very large extent.

Also in this case, the presentation is mainly entrusted to cartographic documents and illustrative tables, where the data on the main sources and on the network of irrigation canals collected during the research are reported.

Thanks to the research, for example, it was possible to survey the number of springs present in the area and their flow rate: there were no less than thirty, and many of them had a flow rate of more than ten liters per second. The most numerous waterways and with the most consistent flow fell within the Coscile basin, the ancient Sybaris, which originates precisely in the Morano territory; the Battentiero basin, the other catchment basin of the territory’s hydrographic system, was of lesser importance.

The irrigation network was also highly developed: it was calculated that at the beginning of the nineteenth century, thanks to it, the extension of irrigated land was equal to 16% of the surface area of arable land (approximately 1,452 tomolatas, equal to 484 hectares). and 4% of the current municipal area. Thanks to this network, in addition to irrigating the land, the water was also used to operate the mills and fulling mills.

Finally, the sixteenth-century aqueduct is particularly important, which collected the springs present in the San Paolo district and ended, beyond the town, at the Capuchin convent.