page_title: Canal du Midi
section_title: Water supply for the canal
hierarchical_section_title: Canal du Midi / The structures / Water supply for the canal
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: France, Haute-Garonne (31), Canal du Midi, écluse de Négra près de Villefranche-de-Lauragais. This building is indexed in the Base Mérimée, a database of architectural heritage maintained by the French Ministry of Culture,&#160;under the reference PA31000028. brezhoneg&#160;| català&#160;| Deutsch&#160;| Ελληνικά&#160;| English&#160;| español&#160;| euskara&#160;| suomi&#160;| français&#160;| magyar&#160;| italiano&#160;| 日本語&#160;| македонски&#160;| Nederlands&#160;| português&#160;| português do Brasil&#160;| română&#160;| русский&#160;| 中文&#160;| +/−
context_page_description: The Canal du Midi is a 240 km long canal in Southern France. Originally named the Canal royal en Languedoc and renamed by French revolutionaries to Canal du Midi in 1789, the canal was at the time considered one of the greatest construction works of the 17th century.
  The canal connects the Garonne to the Étang de Thau on the Mediterranean and along with the 193 km long Canal de Garonne forms the Canal des Deux Mers, joining the Atlantic to the Mediterranean. The canal runs from the city of Toulouse down to the Étang de Thau near the Mediterranean.
  Strictly speaking, "Canal du Midi" refers to the portion initially constructed from Toulouse to the Mediterranean – the Deux-Mers canal project aimed to link together several sections of navigable waterways to join the Mediterranean and the Atlantic: first the Canal du Midi, then the Garonne which was more or less navigable between Toulouse and Bordeaux, then the Garonne Lateral Canal built later, and finally the Gironde estuary after Bordeaux.
context_section_description: It takes 90 million cubic metres of water to feed the canal for one year. To do this, Riquet set up a complex system of water supply to the canal. The idea was to capture the waters of the Montagne Noire located several tens of kilometres away and bring it to the Seuil de Naurouze, the highest point of the future canal, through channels.
  These channels, called "Rigole de la montagne" (Channel of the Mountain) and "Rigole de la plaine" (Channel of the Plain) connected the upper three reservoirs (Lampy, Cammazes, and Saint-Ferréol) at the seuil de Naurouze. The Rigole de la Montagne measured 24.269 km long and has 22 structures between the outlet at Alzeau and the falls of Cammazes. The Rigole de la Plaine measured 38.121 km long at 21.45m altitude and included 68 structures between the Crouzet bridge and the seuil de Naurouze.
  Initially, two reservoirs fed the highest point of the canal at the seuil de Naurouze: the Bassin de Saint-Ferréol had a capacity of 6.3 million cubic metres and was built between 1667 and 1672. The other reservoir was much smaller - the Bassin de Lampy. Called "Lampy-Vieux", it was quickly replaced by the "Lampy-Neuf" with a capacity of 1,672,000 cubic metres built over a hundred years later between 1777 and 1782.
  The Bassin de Saint-Ferréol was and remains the main water reservoir for the canal with a surface of 67 hectares. It receives the waters of the Montagne Noire via the Channel of the Mountain which is itself supplied by the basin of Lampy. The lake waters are retained by a dam 786m long and 149m wide consisting of three parallel walls. The channel surrounds the basin and can evacuate any excess water. A museum is located near the outlets and has displays on the history of the construction of the Lake.
  Originally the engineer planned and built a third reservoir, the Naurouze, but it was abandoned in 1680 due to its excessive silting. Pierre-Paul Riquet had dreamed of the construction of a new city around this basin that never saw the day. A floodway was quickly dug to drain the Naurouze basin from the south.
  Other reservoirs were also built at Carcassonne to supply the lower part of the canal to the Mediterranean. So the waters of the Fresquel, the Cesse, and the Orbiel augmented those of the canal. On the other hand, the waters of the Orb at Beziers provided additional flow to part of the canal. In 1957 the Cammazes dam with a capacity of 20 million cubic metres of water was filled on the Sor which completed and finalized the supply network. This lake provides drinking water to more than 200 communes in the region. Of the 20 million cubic metres, 4 million are reserved for feeding the Canal du Midi.
caption: The Négra Lock with its rounded side walls, which are features of the Canal du Midi.
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