LA CONSTRUCCIÓN DE INFRAESTRUCTURAS DE ABASTECIMIENTO DE AGUA COMO RESPUESTA DE SUPERVIVENCIA Y MODERNIZACIÓN DEL SECTOR AGRARIO ESPAÑOL.

Spain is a country dominated mainly by a Mediterranean climate of, where the annual dry summers alternate with occasional long periods of rainfall drought. This irregularity in the rainfall regime has generated serious socio-economic problems throughout history, due to the weight that the agrarian sector has had, and has, in many regions of the country. This paper presents some ways in which the agrarian sector has adapted to this environmental limitation at different scales (government, region and farm), particularly in the second half of the 20th century thanks to technological advances. Examples of government planning of land conversion into irrigated lands based on the construction of reservoirs or canals, adaptations at the regional scale of agricultural lands, or construction of key infrastructure at the farm level to improve productivity are some of the paradigmatic cases treated here. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]