* The author is part of the community of readers of La Vanguardia
In La Vanguardia's Readers' Photos we can see how the Sant Ponç reservoir has been losing water flow since last August until today.
The comparison of two images shows us what the reservoir was like on August 1, at 37.5%, and how it looks now, October 17, when it is at 25% of its capacity.
The swamp of Sant Ponç is a reservoir located in the middle valley of the Cardener river, created by a dam located in the municipality of Clariana de Cardener, which extends through the borders of this town, Olius and Navès, in the region of Solsonès, not far from the border with Bages.
It is part of the group of reservoirs in the Llobregat river basin. To build it, the gorge formed by the Cardener was used at the site of the Sant Ponç hermitage, which was submerged, although its ruins can now be seen again.
The reservoir has a capacity of 24.4 hm³, a length of 5.8 km and a total area of 144.5 ha. The water from Sant Ponç played a very important role in extinguishing the great forest fire that ravaged the counties of Solsonès, Bages, Anoia and Segarra on July 18, 1998 and that razed some 27,000 hectares of central Catalonia.
