Territorio, Tecnología y Capital : la regulación hidroeléctrica de los ríos españoles (1900-1970)

Abstract

The historical and present relations between the capital, public works, irrigations systems and hydroelectric energy are analyzed in this paper. The landscape and the arrangement of the territory in many river basins of the Iberian Peninsula have always been conditioned by man made structures such as river dams. These type of works, often controversial, have a double sided effect: benefits distant spaces (irrigation, drinkable water provision, production of electrical energy, etc.) and creates problems locally (land expropriation, lost of agriculture land, valley isolation, etc.). From an historical review of the development of different hydroelectric projects across Spain, this paper shows how the traditional relations between private capital and great public works particularly in the case of the hydroelectric energy, favoured the creation of a water landscape where it did not exist before.