The cultural and cognitive dimensions of traditional irrigation knowledge in Spain

Traditional Irrigation Knowledge (TIK) is a time-tested set of social and environmental arrangements centered on the use of gravity-fed channels to flood irrigate crops. In Spain, many traditional irrigators rely on knowledge, practices and water management regulations that derive from the al-Andalus period (711-1492 AD) and hence are a conspicuous example of agrarian practices that have shown sustainability through time. However, we still do not know how they reason and make decisions regarding irrigation systems and agricultural practices.

Here we present the preliminary results from c. 100 semi-structured interviews with irrigators from six different traditional irrigation systems of Spain. The study combined free-listing, cognitive mapping and a semi-structured questionnaire to examine irrigators' conceptualizations of irrigation and agroecosystem dynamics.

The results indicate that traditional irrigators think about irrigation not only as a productive strategy to manage water and crops, but also as a culturally embedded system sustained by emotional attachment and ancestral continuity. Decision-making is strongly informed by local ecological knowledge and lived experience. Many irrigators rely on animal behaviour (such as birds, amphibians, insects and cattle) to predict and identify climatic patterns; the same applies for cloud formation processes, wind patterns and other meteorological phenomena. Many local communities have also learned to identify comestible weeds growing after irrigation, which they use as condiments. Overall, our work shows that irrigators decision-making is highly influenced by local ecological memory and personal experience, and reveals that the relevance of traditional irrigation systems for sustainability extends beyond food production to encompass ecological, social and emotional dimensions.