Parque Natural da Ria Formosa
The Parque Natural da Ria Formosa is a natural park around a lagoon in the southern Portuguese Algarve . With a protected area of 170 km², the lagoon is one of the largest protected lagoon areas in Europe. The actual lagoon covers 83.5 km².
geography
The lagoon is connected to the Atlantic by five natural and one artificial sixth exit, created between 1927 and 1952, the latter serving as a connection route from the Atlantic to the port of Faro on the northern edge of the lagoon. Two other towns are on the edge of the lagoon, namely Tavira (around 25,000 inhabitants) on the eastern edge of the lagoon and Olhão (around 31,000 inhabitants) between Faro and Tavira. The park stretches between Quinta do Lago in the west, which is 20 km west of Faro, to Manta Rota , east of Tavira.
The 1 km long Comboio da Praia do Barril leads from the pontoon bridge at Luz de Tavira to Praia do Barril .
Natural history
The lagoon landscape in its current form was created by the earthquake and seaquake of 1755. The chain of islands off the lagoon consists of the Ilha de Faro (more correctly: Peninsula de Ançao), Ilha Deserta (also called Ilha da Barreta), Ilha da Culatra , Ilha da Armona , Ilha de Tavira, Ilha de Cabanas and Peninsula de Cacela.
In 1978 of the 83.5 km² total area of the lagoon, 48 km² were salt marshes, sand dunes and mud flats, 35.5 km² canals, streams or other bodies of water, 0.9 km² salt pans and 0.2 km² aquaculture tanks.
In 1975 waders were counted for the first time, with 20 species being registered in 12,775 birds. In 1976 and 1977 these numbers were 20,068 and 21,383, respectively. The salt pans are of great importance to them, as was shown in 1984 and 1985. Around a quarter to a third of the waders stayed in the area of the salt pans, although there were strong deviations depending on the species, including species that avoided the salt pans, such as the common woodcock (Limosa lapponica).
The 60 km long area was placed under protection in 1987, on the one hand to allow fishing to continue, on the other hand to preserve the resting place for migratory birds, but also to provide a natural protective wall against the Atlantic. From 1980 to 1986 and 2001 to 2002 studies of the fish stocks were carried out, and 57 species were registered in each case. However, it turned out that the mullets had declined sharply. It was concluded from this that the amount of organic matter in the lagoon, less on the drains, is heavily dependent on human intervention.
To the west of the lagoon, research has been carried out on how quickly the volumes of the salt marshes grow in the face of rising sea levels as the marshes grow vertically. Their total volume was estimated at 1,549,215 m³. On average, vertical deposition rates of 0.4 mm per year between 1681 BC have been calculated since then. And the year 2001. Between 1941 and 2000, however, this rate increased to 8 to 9 mm per year.
literature
- JC Costa: Dune vegetation of the Ria Formosa Natural Park , in: Francisco García Novo, Robert MM Crawford, Mari Cruz Díaz Barradas (eds.): The Ecology and Conservation of European Dunes , Universidad de Sevilla 1997, pp. 83-87.
Web links
Remarks
- ↑ This and the following from: Leslie Batty: The wader communities of a saline and an intertidal site on the Ria Formosa, Portugal , in: Wader Study Group Bulletin 66 (1992) 66-72.
- ↑ Joaquim Ribeiro, Carlos C. Monteiro, Pedro Monteiro, Luis Bentes, Rui Coelho, Jorge MS Gonçalves, Pedro G. Lino, Karim Erzini: Long-term changes in fish communities of the Ria Formosa coastal lagoon (southern Portugal) based on two studies made 20 years apart , in: Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science 76.1 (January 2008) 57–68.
- ↑ Gilles Arnaud-Fassetta, Frédéric Bertrand, Stéphane Costa, Robert Davidson: The western lagoon marshes of the Ria Formosa (Southern Portugal): Sediment-vegetation dynamics, long-term to short-term changes and perspective , in: Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science 26.3 (March 2006) 363-384.
Coordinates: 36 ° 59 ′ N , 7 ° 55 ′ W