Deactivated Saltpans

Abstract

In coastal areas, there are economic activities that have been established for some time now – decades or even centuries – which help to maintain not only the local economy, but also to achieve a balanced relationships with nature. Tourism and leisure activities benefit from this balance. Sometimes, due to disturbing causes, these balances are destabilized, which generates setbacks. For example, in Salinas de Cabo de Gata (Almeria, Spain), heavy rains in the spring of 2022 caused an obstruction in the channel that carries seawater to the wetland located there. This occurrence caused a desiccation of the area that is dramatically affecting the waterfowl that depended on the evaporators of the salt flats. The involvement of different interested parties put pressure on to resolve the problem, which however was technically resolved, but whose results in a broad sense are gradual. In this chapter, this case study is explored in more detail.