Old mills' hydraulics in the upper Amadorio River, Relleu (Marina Baixa), Alacant, Spain

Miquel Salgot and Manuel A. Soler

International Journal of Global Environmental Issues, 2015, vol. 14, issue 3/4, 275-285

Abstract: The purpose of this paper is to show the efficiency, in terms of energy, of the ancient mills' infrastructures composed by little dams, channels and mills, working as a stairs of hydropower systems in the Relleu municipality, Alacant province, Spain. A very big difference among the efficiency of the ancient systems and the technology of today has been found. It is difficult to find money to retrofit the old infrastructures because the possible profits obtained will not be enough to recover the costs incurred, even considering the benefits derived from the upholding of the industrial heritage, an immaterial and intangible asset. In past times, conditions of technology, building, living and economy were very different than today and it was possible to invest time, money and workforce in building and using old hydropower facilities. The remains of this industrial heritage are there to show how difficult it is to evaluate the profitability of an investment depending on changing circumstances.

Keywords: water heritage; old mills; ancient water culture; material heritage; immaterial heritage; Relleu; Alacant; Spain; mill hydraulics; energy efficiency; dams; water channels; hydropower systems; infrastructure retrofitting; cultural heritage; industrial heritage. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.inderscience.com/link.php?id=71866 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ids:ijgenv:v:14:y:2015:i:3/4:p:275-285

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in International Journal of Global Environmental Issues from Inderscience Enterprises Ltd
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sarah Parker ().