Sources, lakes and rivers of the Serranía de Cuenca

Where the water emerges

Limestone swallows the rain and returns it through cracks. The Júcar rises at the foot of the Estrecho del Infierno, near Tragacete: its source is the first stage of the Camino Natural, a greenway of Spain’s national network. The Cuervo emerges from a cleft at the end of a tufa barrier, in the Natural Monument of Vega del Codorno, and supplies the river almost all year. In Fuentes the River Moscas rises among springs, and in Huerta del Marquesado the Las Fuentes area feeds the River Laguna.

Lakes of many origins

Laguna de Uña opens where the Arroyo del Rincón reaches the Júcar and grew with the channel of the Salto de Villalba. Laguna del Marquesado is a karst lake dammed by tufa, a Nature Reserve of 373 hectares. Laguna de Talayuelas is endorheic, with no outlet. The Cañada del Hoyo lakes fill the bottoms of dolines, and La Parra preserves 1,600 years of climate in its mud. In Fuentes, the Moscas complex opens in gypsum, and in El Tobar, Laguna Grande has fresh water above salt water.

In September and October 2022 a population of about fifty Succisella andreae-molinae plants was found in the Serranía Baja (lower Serranía), a plant of rush beds, lime-rich seepages and wet meadows, about two hundred kilometres from the nearest populations in Albacete. The article reporting it does not name the municipality.

Good conduct

These are protected wetlands: observe them from paths and viewpoints, without going down to the shore or entering the water.