The Besana Pond is located within the municipality of Amusco, in the province of Palencia, on the right bank of the Castile Canal, a short distance from the Bezana Bridge. Its origin is directly linked to the construction and operation of this large hydraulic engineering project, developed between the 18th and 19th centuries, which modified the natural drainage of the area and fostered the formation of stable wetlands.
It is an irregularly shaped, oval-shaped lagoon, approximately 250 by 225 meters in size, with a maximum depth of about 1.5 meters. From the towpath itself, the presence of a wide sheet of water allows one to appreciate a remarkable visual interplay between the water’s surface and the reedbeds and cattails that border and dot its interior, creating one of the most representative landscapes of the Palencia section of the canal.
The Besana Pond is part of the Special Protection Area for Birds (SPA) of the Canal de Castilla Lagoons, integrated into the Natura 2000 Network, and has been the subject of restoration and environmental management actions within the LIFE project. Its heritage value lies both in its extraordinary faunal interest and in its capacity to demonstrate how a historical infrastructure generated new ecosystems of great importance.
For the visitor, this enclave offers a first-rate landscape and natural experience, easily accessible from the towpath, and allows one to understand the Canal de Castilla as a system where engineering, territory and nature are intimately linked.
