The Villoresi Canal

The lands of Alto Milanese are subject of periodic drought because of permeable soil, pebby and gravelly: for this reason the water, infiltrating in the subsoil, lets arid and not much cultivable surface.
Thank to the project of the engineer Eugenio Villoresi wtihin 1881 and 1891was realised indeed a canal – Villoresi canal – that, bringing its water from Ticino, had the function of bringing water to these lands. This work was essential to water the fields and also for the agrarian economy of Alto Milanese.
In yhe past, the canal was used for the transport of materials (above all gravel) and had the function of feeding rice, mulberry, corn and meadows coltures; today is only employed in that of corn and meadows. From the main canal branch off to the South secondary and tertiary canals, as that that water Virgilian Route meadows in Parabiago, that deeply mark the agrarian landscape.