Distribution of schist villages according to water availability in a Portuguese mountain range

<p><strong>Distribution of schist villages according to water availability in a Portuguese mountain range </strong></p><p>Autor: Cássia Callebaut Mendes</p><p>cassiacmendes@gmail.com</p><p> </p><p>The Serra da Lousã, together with the Serra do Açor and Serra da Estrela, constitute the most imposing of the mountainous alignments of Portugal: the Central Cordillera. It consists mainly of shales of pre-Cambrian origin, with steep slopes to the northwest, and quite grooved by the water lines.</p><p>In Serra da Lousã we can find villages whose schist-built houses were once shelters from the weather, from wild animals like the wolf, and other threats.</p><p>One of the topics I will address with my students this year is construction and architecture. Thus, it will be pertinent to relate the geological past of the region with the the construction materials used in the villages; get to know the water network and the strategies that residents developed to store and obtain water in the dry months.</p><p>In this working period, students</p><p>- will visit 2 or 3 villages and the nearest streams. We will relate the geological materials available in the region with the housebuilding; correlate the location of the villages with the distance to the watercourses and observe how the management of this resource took place (reservoir / tank construction, levadas, source ...)</p><p>- They will collect water from different points, analyze their mineralogical composition, compare, and draw conclusions.</p><p> </p><p>In the classroom, students will build a model of one of these villages, using shale used as housebuilding materials, and they will represent all the characteristics of this village based on the observations and studies the performed.</p><p> </p><p>On the poster we will include:</p><p>- Summary of the geological past of Serra da Lousã, and its current framing;</p><p>- Map with the distribution of the villages in Serra da Lousã, indicating those we visited (with photos);</p><p>Map of the Serra da Lousã water distribution and its relationship with the location of the schist villages;</p><p>- Stages of the construction of the model made by the students, of a village model, with the houses in schist, water reservoir, waterfall, brook, levadas, and the final photograph.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>, insira seu HTML abstrato aqui.</p>