Canal de los Franceses
The canal is a hydraulic infrastructure that currently supplies Granada with water from the Quéntar reservoir on the Aguas Blancas River. Built during the Napoleonic invasion, it is one of the aqueducts that crossed ravines and allowed water to circulate from the river intakes to cisterns, pools, and mineral washing plants, some of which are still in use. This hydraulic engineering project was built by French specialists at the end of the 19th century to bring water to the gold mines. Mines that the Romans and Arabs had exploited long before in the conglomerate geological formations of Cenes de la Vega, deposited eight million years ago. The canal is approximately 16km, of which 9,827km run through tunnels and siphons and 6,350km are uncovered. It crosses highly complex orography on the right bank of the Aguas Blancas river valley, on the western edge of the Sierra Nevada.