Porto Santo (waters of)
Original title: Porto Santo (As Aguas do)
Describes the water shortages that prolonged droughts cause on Porto Santo, and the large rainwater channel (vala) built by the Junta Geral under Dr João Abel de Freitas around 1942. The channel was meant to capture runoff from Pico do Castelo, irrigate land and recharge the island's springs and wells.
Drought and the Porto Santo water channel
When droughts are prolonged, as happens from time to time, this island suffers the consequences of a veritable public calamity. The District General Council (Junta Geral do Distrito), under the presidency of Dr João Abel de Freitas, deserves great praise for ordering important agricultural water works there, in order to lessen the crises caused by these droughts and to bring considerable benefit to the farming of that whole region. The construction of a large ‘ditch’ (vala) was judged necessary, and in an interview given to a newspaper in 1942 the president described it in the terms we shall now reproduce.
The construction of a ditch to capture and distribute rainwater, now under way, is perhaps the work of greatest economic and social importance ever carried out there, not only because it comes at the right moment to provide work for hundreds of hands, but also because of the influence it should have on the agricultural development of the region.
The first function of this ditch is to capture the water which, sometimes in great volumes, runs down the slopes of Pico do Castelo (‘castle peak’) and has done so much damage to the slopes below. Once one of the main causes of the ruinous state of this land has been removed, the incentive may arise to rebuild the walls and restore the land that has been lost.
Secondly, the water thus captured will be carried, along the part of the ditch intended for distribution, across sandy ground in the localities of Camacha, Eira Velha, Areias, etc. These form a natural reservoir of great capacity, into which all the water channelled there will soak. From this great infiltration field comes the water for almost all the existing springs and wells.
The aim is thus to make use, in two ways, of water that has until now been harmful: first, directly, by irrigating the land below the ditch; and secondly, by increasing the groundwater and, consequently, the flow of the springs. This will also make it economically worthwhile to sink new wells, and so to extend the irrigated land.
A further advantage of building this ditch is that it will encourage the construction of wells or dams at the most suitable places along its course, where water can be held back for future irrigation, once a regular surplus of water is found to justify such construction.’
In this article
Time
Years mentioned · 01Place
Places mentioned · 05
- Areias
Porto Santo. A sandy locality forming part of the natural infiltration reservoir.
Areias is the sandy central part of Porto Santo, one of the island's two small plains and one of its main localities, covered by sand blown from dunes in the north-west. Windbreaks of trees and reeds were planted to stop the sand spreading; the area receives channelled water as part of a natural infiltration reservoir and has large vineyards, some planted by state workers in the late eighteenth century.
- Camacha
Porto Santo. A sandy locality where the captured water was to be left to soak into the ground.
Camacha is one of the main localities of Porto Santo. It is a sandy site that acts as an infiltration reservoir, where captured water was to be left to soak into the ground.
- Eira Velha
Porto Santo. A sandy locality forming part of the natural infiltration reservoir.
Eira Velha is a sandy locality on Porto Santo that receives channelled water. It forms part of the island's natural infiltration reservoir.
- Pico do Castelo
Porto Santo. The peak whose slopes shed the storm runoff that the channel was designed to capture.
The best-known peak of Porto Santo, given as 440 or 441 m high, named after the ruins of an old fort on its crest. The steep peak served as the islanders' refuge from pirate raids and was fortified in the early 18th century. Its slopes, with trachyte outcrops, were reforested, and a channel was designed to capture their storm runoff.
- Porto Santo
The island that suffers from droughts and where the water channel was built.
An island of the archipelago, settled alongside Madeira and forming one of the three captaincies. It has always constituted a single parish, dedicated to Nossa Senhora da Piedade, whose church was repeatedly sacked. The Elucidário records the Moorish pirate raid of 1617, its own Misericórdia and a rainwater channel built on this drought-prone island.
People
People mentioned · 01-
President of the Junta Geral of the Funchal district who ordered the water works on Porto Santo and described the new channel in a 1942 newspaper interview.