Puntos de Interés
Hydrography
El Jardin river
El Jardín River, also known as the River Balazote or River Don Juan on its passage through the town of Balazote in Albacete, belongs to the Mediterranean side of the Júcar River Basin. It rises in the foothills of the Sierra de Alcaraz, and after running through a steep valley, it extends towards the plain of Los Llanos with a very gentle gradient of barely 0.8%.
Its basin provides between 30 and 70 hm³ of water per year and, together with its main tributary, the River Arquillo, constitutes the fluvial axis of the southwest of Los Llanos. Its waters are essential for local agriculture: around 5,500 hectares of irrigated land are fed by a traditional network of irrigation ditches that remains of great important ethnographic value.
The riverbank forms a green corridor where willows, poplars and ash trees grow, together with poplar plantations for production that to take advantage of the flood-prone banks. In wetter areas there are also reedbeds and rushes, a refuge for small riverside birds, amphibians and fish species that adapted to the changing flow, such as the Mediterranean barbel (Luciobarbus guiraonis), the chub (Squalius pyrenaicus) or the common colmilleja (Cobitis paludica).
On the Balazote section, the environment has been adapted for walking and nature observation. Several wooden footbridges cross the riverbed and a rest area invites walkers to take a moment to stop, relax and contemplate the agricultural and riverside landscape.