The Traditional Distribution of the Water of the Turia River among the Irrigation Canals of the Huerta de Valencia: A Late Medieval System

The water of the Turia river has been traditionally distributed in the Huerta of Valencia among eight irrigation canals through a system of 138 filas, a measure of water capacity which nature is not clear. It is also unknown what is the historical origin of this system of water division and this is what we study in this article.Thomas F. Glick defended that it was a system of Andalusi origin, and proposed a reconstruction of the original system based on time shifts, but we try to demonstrate that this proposal cannot be correct, especially because it is based on a wrong interpretation of the nature of the row. Subsequently, we provide an alternative proposal on the origin of the distribution system in 138 filas that is based on the proportionality between the amount of water that each irrigation canal has and the amount of land irrigated by each hydraulic system, concluding that the distribution system of the Huerta deValencia can only have been established shortly after the Christian conquest of the thirteenth century, when the Huerta was greatly expanded and rebuilt. Finally, we conclude that this is another evidence of the great changes that took place in irrigated cultivation spaces of Andalusi origin after the Christian conquests, contrary to what had been said so far.