The Mar Menor: Action at last to save a dying sea

The largest permanent saltwater lagoon in Europe, situated in the south-east of Spain, has been experiencing spells where seabed vegetation, fish and crustations die because of extreme eutrophication, where an excess of nutrients boosts growth of algae and plants, removing oxygen from the water and blocking light. A legacy of mining and a huge expansion in tourism have contributed to the destruction, but it was a switch from traditional agriculture to intensive farming methods in the surrounding catchment area that has caused the most damage. For decades, run-off from the farming land rich in nitrates has entered the lagoon. To irrigate the whole area, farmers built wells and installed hundreds of desalination plants to turn the brackish groundwater of the aquifer into water suitable for irrigation. The brine this produces is full of nitrates and has been reaching the Mar Menor for decades. The article looks where does the responsibility for the disaster lies, and at potential restoration solutions to the problem, including the combined use of denitrifying bioreactors and manmade wetlands.

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McGlone C. The Mar Menor: Action at last to save a dying sea. The Institution of Engineering and Technology, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1049/et.2022.0302

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Retrieved: 20 Jan 2025 16:39:57
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Resource type Article
Date of creation 2024-11-05
Date of last revision 2025-01-20
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Metadata identifier f592a520-748f-56fc-8ed6-0167b614869f
Metadata language Spanish
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High-value dataset category Earth observation and environment
ISO 19115 topic category biota
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Name of the dataset creator McGlone, C
Name of the dataset editor The Institution of Engineering and Technology
Other identifier DOI: 10.1049/et.2022.0302
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