The alluvial cone of the Palància River formerly established the northern limit of the corridor of coastal marshes of the agricultural garden of València, which lined the coast line from the “Albufera” (lagoon) to the “Grau” (slopes) of Sagunt. Thus, the marsh of the Moors, boxed in on the South by the Palància River, constituted the last section of unbroken coastal wetlands that extended from the delta plains of the Túria River, closing the end of lands irrigated by the Royal Irrigation Canal of Montcada in territory of Puçol.

The marsh of the Moors has had a close relationship for centuries with the Royal Irrigation Canal of Montcada, so it must be kept in mind that in ancient times the most southern limits extended until the current territory of “Puig” (hill), where a series of spaces dedicated to marshes and ponds, which through a group of entries, received the abundant draining of a set of springs and sources that were closed by the coastline sandbar between this area and the extent of the Grau of Sagunt. This was a sandbar that, already in the 13th century, shortly after the feudal conquest of these lands by army of James I, made it difficult for the “saguntin” farmers to manage the irrigation channel of Arrif for the sanitation of their farmland. As a testimony of the abundance of paperwork of this medieval period, the natural drain and this palustrine space it occupied was considered the final section of the Irrigation Canal of Montcada. The chronic refusal of commoners of Montcada of those years to standardize the transfer of its flows to their irrigator neighbors was made effective by the lack of contact points between its own combination of ditches or derivations and other hydraulic systems. This resulted in that the water could not progress through the Arrif channels, and in parallel, the flows from Montcada were trapped by the wetland.
Already during the year nine hundred, the relicts of the marsh of Moors, located between the municipalities of Puçol and Sagunt, had gone through various episodes of environmental aggressions. After several failed projects, the marsh was transformed during the first half of the 20th century. However, at the end of the 1970s, these lands were expropriated for the expansion of the iron industry of the Sagunt. The economic crisis of heavy industry paralyzed these building initiatives and the former marsh, then with no agricultural activity, gradually began regaining its wetland status.
The dramatic revival of the swamp, newly populated by valuable plant and animal species, again motivated by the Administration, led to protection under various figures (ZEPA, Catalogue of Wetlands).

MEDIEVAL PERIOD
(Al-Andalus) [711-1238]

MEDIEVAL PERIOD
(Kingdom of València) [1239-1453]

MODERN PERIOD [1454-1789]

CONTEMPORARY PERIOD [1790-2012]