FITTING THE RIVER TORMES AND THE CURRENT ASPECTS OF MAINTAINING THE DRAINAGE SYSTEM

Duină C. Valeria Simona

University of Craiova, Geography Department Craiova, Romania

Abstract

The water represents the blue soul of this planet, the fight to recover and maintain the health of the rivers, lakes, swamps, seas and oceans, the fight for the living and the ones that are going to live on Earth. Unfortunately, over many decades the industrial and the consumer society understood the aquatic ecosystems as simple water channels or reservoirs whose essential utility was served as a productive factor. Mass development of hydraulic infrastructure with public subsidy and systematic contamination of rivers and groundwater have led us to a critical point of insensitivity and insecurity. Tormes River, a tributary on the left side of the river Duero, springs from the Sierra de Gredos, near of Hoyos Del Espino, then crosses the provinces of Avila and Salamanca, and after 247 km flows into the River Duero (administratively within the locality Villarino de los Aires). Due to its characteristics this river does not ensure the water supply of human settlements in the summer, a fact that determined at the end of 1960 the construction of Santa Teresa dam with a capacity of 496 m3, which provides and secures the water supply in summer and prevent floods in winter. The lack of rainfall, combined in some sectors with the electric production through hydroelectric micro powers, have left the bed of the river Tormes to record minimal values of leakage, the most representative being in town Puente Del Congosto, where in February 2012 recorded 3.62 m3 and in the same period of 2011, there were more than 15m3. This study aims to present variations of level and flow of the Tormes River at different times of year for a period of five years, at 5 stations located along it, from source to river mouth. The target objectives implies the projects achieved and the ones involved ongoing the arrangement of Tormes River, but also the ones of the maintenance of drainage regime, given the situation presented above. Conservation and recovery is a constant struggle of human societies that live along this river, which starts to react more and more against the negative effects that have come to destroy nature.

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