The Ripoll () is a river in the ''
comarca'' of
Vallès Occidental
Vallès Occidental () is a Comarques of Catalonia, comarca (county) in the Àmbit metropolità de Barcelona, Barcelona region in Catalonia (Spain). It has two capitals, Sabadell and Terrassa. Along with Vallès Oriental, it forms the historical Va ...
,
Catalonia
Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationalities and regions of Spain, nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006, Statute of Autonomy. Most of its territory (except the Val d'Aran) is situate ...
,
Spain
Spain, or the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe with territories in North Africa. Featuring the Punta de Tarifa, southernmost point of continental Europe, it is the largest country in Southern Eur ...
. It covers the vast majority of the shire, crossing it from north to south, and flows into the river
Besòs, near
Barcelona
Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...
.
Geography
The source of the river is located in the
Serra de Granera, at of
elevation
The elevation of a geographic location (geography), ''location'' is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational equipotenti ...
, and it discharges in
Montcada i Reixac, at . It has a length of , with a total of , once its tributaries are included. It covers the vast majority of the ''
comarca'' of
Vallès Occidental
Vallès Occidental () is a Comarques of Catalonia, comarca (county) in the Àmbit metropolità de Barcelona, Barcelona region in Catalonia (Spain). It has two capitals, Sabadell and Terrassa. Along with Vallès Oriental, it forms the historical Va ...
, passing through the
municipalities
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having municipal corporation, corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality' ...
of
Sant Llorenç Savall,
Castellar del Vallès,
Sabadell
Sabadell () is a city and municipality in Catalonia, Spain. It is in the south of the ''comarca'' of Vallès Occidental, where it is one of the two capitals, the other being Terrassa. It is located on the River Ripoll, north of Barcelona, a ...
,
Barberà del Vallès,
Ripollet and Montcada i Reixac. Throughout the ''comarca'', it crosses
alluvial clay terrains, which erodes easily, causing the river to carve a deep path into the soil.
History
Throughout its history, the river was used by the inhabitants of the surrounding area for irrigation. Irrigation has been in place from at least the mid-10th century, when priests of
Sant Llorenç built an irrigation system that is still used to work the orchards along the riverside and
mills to produce
flour
Flour is a powder made by Mill (grinding), grinding raw grains, List of root vegetables, roots, beans, Nut (fruit), nuts, or seeds. Flours are used to make many different foods. Cereal flour, particularly wheat flour, is the main ingredie ...
.
As modernization also reached the area, most of the mills were reconverted to produce paper. However, by the 18th century, the production of paper had ceased to be a dominant industry along the river.
During the 19th century, the mills of the riverside were reconverted again, this time into
textile
Textile is an Hyponymy and hypernymy, umbrella term that includes various Fiber, fiber-based materials, including fibers, yarns, Staple (textiles)#Filament fiber, filaments, Thread (yarn), threads, and different types of #Fabric, fabric. ...
factories, which lasted until the late 20th century. Due to the dyes and chemicals used in the textile industry, the water of the river became heavily polluted.
More recently, because of the
Catalan textile crisis, most of the factories were abandoned or reconverted for other uses, lessening the strain on the river's water quality. Recently, there have been initiatives to recover the Ripoll for community recreation, by restoring the river, which had deteriorated due not only to industrial pollution but also to the shanty towns made by immigrants who came to work in the mills from
Southern Spain during the 1960s.
1962 disaster
In 1962, the
Vallès Occidental
Vallès Occidental () is a Comarques of Catalonia, comarca (county) in the Àmbit metropolità de Barcelona, Barcelona region in Catalonia (Spain). It has two capitals, Sabadell and Terrassa. Along with Vallès Oriental, it forms the historical Va ...
suffered a period of strong floods followed by winds that devastated the shire and caused hundreds of deaths. The immigrants from southern Spain who were extremely poor and had settled in the riverside suffered the worst consequences.
[Websites with pictures and information about the windfalls and floods of 1962: , , ]
See also
*
List of rivers of Catalonia
References
External links
Pictures of the floods and the snowfall of 1962Sabadell City Council's website, which contains some pages with information about the river and its historyWebsite talking about the floods of 1962 in Terrassa*
ttps://web.archive.org/web/20070927035215/http://www.cerdanyola.info/reportatges/reportatge9146.html Digital newspaper of the Cerdanyola City Council{{coord, 41, 41, 17.36, N, 2, 3, 23.79, E, display=title, region:ES-CT_type:river_source:cawiki
Rivers of Spain
Vallès Occidental
Rivers of Catalonia