|
Just
a few metres from the coast line and close to densely populated
areas, the Lower Ter plain continues to be a rural area. It is mainly
an agricultural area containing an important number of lands dedicated
to irrigation crops in the Baix Empordà.
Long ago, the Daró and Ter periodically flooded the area
resulting in extremely fertile lands that were gradually drained
by ways of a complicated irrigation system, the construction of
dykes and the canalization of parts of the river.
Nowadays, the plain (and especially the areas closer to the river)
is occupied by orchards (apple, peach and pear), irrigation croplands,
cereals (alfalfa, wheat, fodder) and black poplar groves. Crops
that can be grown in dry areas (vineyards and olive trees) take
up those areas in which water is scarce; although they tend to be
abandoned and their size diminishes.
|
|
Agricultural
plain of the Baix Ter |
Detail
of a field of olive trees |
Moreover,
in the lower area of Pals rice fields have appeared. They find
that lands closer to the sea have the perfect requirements of
temperature and humidity needed to grow rice. Rice fields in the
Lower Ter date from the XIII century, but it is not until the
end of the XVII century and beginning of the XVIII century that
its cultivation intensifies mainly due to an important population
explosion that reaches until the XX century. But from the 1960s
onwards the number of rice fields decreased, until in the mid
1980s they recovered and nowadays they occupy nearly 300 hectares.
|
Rice field
in Basses d'en Coll |
|
|
