News sponsored by DPH
The plenary session of the Provincial Council of Huesca held this week unanimously approved awarding the XXVIII Félix de Azara Award to irrigators throughout the province.
Today, the province of Huesca boasts two of the largest and most important hydraulic systems in Spain and Europe, which translate into service and prosperity for our region. Systems like the Alto Aragón Irrigation System and the Aragón and Catalonia Canal not only irrigate fields: they structure the territory, make life possible in vast rural areas, and help maintain a balance between human activity and the natural environment.
Large-scale hydraulic infrastructure projects have not only created irrigated land. The construction of large canals and reservoirs has brought water to areas where it was previously scarce. Thanks to these systems, many towns and thousands of people in our province are assured of a supply of drinking water, even during times of drought.
Beyond providing drinking water, the water network has completely transformed agriculture, turning arid lands into fertile and productive areas. Today, this system sustains thousands of farms and supports an economic activity that retains population, connects the territory, and helps prevent the abandonment and degradation of rural areas.
Furthermore, irrigators have clearly committed to new technologies for water management, developing digitalization projects, remote control systems, automation of water intakes, replacement of manual gates with motorized ones, use of renewable energies… A technological transformation that has a direct environmental goal: to use water better and improve the system's responsiveness.
For all these reasons, the Provincial Council wishes to recognize those who, generation after generation, have made all this possible: the irrigators of our province who have been and continue to be a fundamental part of the development of our land.
Awarding irrigators is also a way of recognizing a particular way of understanding rural life. It's a way of caring for water, making it productive without waste, sharing it across different regions, modernizing its management, and transforming that effort into prosperity, employment, and territorial cohesion. This combination of nature, human labor, and innovation perfectly aligns with the spirit of an environmental award like the Félix de Azara.
The Provincial Council is already working on preparations for the 28th Félix de Azara Awards gala, where this award and the other prizes will be presented. The venue and date of the gala will be announced soon.
