EBRO RIVER

Spanish Ro Ebro, Latin Iberus, or Hiberus, river, the longest in Spain. The Ebro rises in springs at Fontibre near Reinosa in the Cantabrian Mountains, in Cantabria provincia of northern Spain. It flows for 565 miles (910 km) in a southeasterly course to its delta on the Mediterranean coast in Tarragona provincia, midway between Barcelona and Valencia. The Ebro has the greatest discharge of any Spanish river, and its drainage basin, at 33,000 square miles (85,500 square km), is the largest in Spain; the river drains about one-sixth of the country. Because it plunges through the coastal mountain ranges by a series of deep gorges and defiles, the Ebro is only navigable upstream for 15 miles (25 km) from its delta to the city of Tortosa. The Ebro's interior basin is arid, poor, and sparsely populated. Irrigation has been intensified there from the 1950s, though it is still limited to the main floodplains in the middle reaches of the river between Tudela and Saragossa (site of the Imperial Canal system, begun in the 16th century) and to the interfluves on the north-central plain around Caspe. The modern networks of irrigation canals between the Brdenas project and the Monegros and Cinca valleys are impressive. The upper part of the Ebro River basin, the Rioja Alta, around Logroo, gives its name to the Rioja wine produced there. The Ebro River receives water from more than 200 tributaries, the largest of which have been utilized for hydroelectric power and irrigation. A system of 35 major dams produces a significant portion of Spain's hydroelectric power, chiefly in the upper La Noguera valleys. Extensive lignite deposits in the southeastern, or lower, part of the basin are used to produce thermo-electric power.