ABSTRACT
Although the Romans irrigated in Spain, dry-farming was the basis of Roman agriculture and the artificial supply of water was supplementary. The considerable hydraulic works of the Romans (which the Arabs later admired as being monuments to the engineering prowess of the ancients-al-uwal), such as the Aqueduct of Segovia, were designed for urban water supply only, not for agriculture, although certain storage dams in Extremadura may indeed have stored water for agricultural use. In any event, the Muslims must have found that much of the pre-existing irrigation infrastructure was buried in subsoil. Such was no doubt true of the Valencian huerta, which had suffered a catastrophic population loss after the political turmoil of the 3rd century A. D.
