Estany d'Ivars i Vila-sana, Restored wetland in Ivars d'Urgell and Vila-sana, Catalonia, Spain.
Estany d'Ivars i Vila-sana lies between Ivars d'Urgell and Vila-sana in the Pla d'Urgell, fed by the Urgell canal and draining into the Corb river. It covers 126 hectares, reaches 3.8 metres at its deepest and measures 2,150 metres long by 730 wide, with 25 islands and 8 hectares of reed beds for water treatment.
The basin formed over thousands of years as water surfaced on an impermeable bed and pooled without lateral drainage, staying shallow and brackish and sometimes drying out in summer. The Urgell Canal, built in 1861, turned it into a drain for irrigation runoff and it grew to 135 hectares, 2,500 m long and 3.8 m deep. A 1914 drainage attempt failed after irrigators objected; it was drained in 1951 and refilled from 2005 to 2009.
The lake's name survives in local memory as the 'estany d'Ivars' or 'llacuna d'Utxafava'. After its 1951 drainage, the dried basin became farmland, but the lake remained a social and economic hub for surrounding villages, where duck and coot hunting and eel fishing at Ca l'Aragonès were long-standing traditions.
Visitors can access the lake through Cal Sinén farm information center, which coordinates guided excursions, bird ringing participation, and provides facilities including parking areas and observation points with binocular rental services.
The lake bed sits in an endorheic basin that once dried out completely in some summers, and the 1861 Urgell Canal turned it into a drainage sump. Eels were caught in quantity at Ca l'Aragonès, at the lake's outflow, where a system of grates trapped them. Controlled carp fishing was approved in 2010.
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