The ecology of the Mar Menor coastal lagoon: A fast changing ecosystem under human pressure

The Mar Menor is a hypersaline coastal lagoon, with a surface area of 135 km2 and a perimeter of 59.51 km. It is located on the southwestern Mediterranean coastline (3742′00′′N, 0047′00′′W) with a mean depth of 3.6 m and a maximum depth of 6 m. “La Manga,” a sandy bar 22 km long and 100–900 m wi...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Pérez Ruzafa, Ángel, Marcos Diego, Concepción, Gilabert Cervera, Francisco Javier Lucas
Tipo de recurso: capítulo de libro
Fecha de publicación:2005
País:España
Institución:Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena(UPCT)
Repositorio:Repositorio Digital UPCT
OAI Identifier:oai:repositorio.upct.es:10317/10309
Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/10317/10309
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Regional sustainability
Smart coastal territory
Coastal lagoons
Mar Menor area
Hydrodynamics
Ecologíal
2410.05 Ecología Humana
3308 Ingeniería y Tecnología del Medio Ambiente
Descripción
Sumario:The Mar Menor is a hypersaline coastal lagoon, with a surface area of 135 km2 and a perimeter of 59.51 km. It is located on the southwestern Mediterranean coastline (3742′00′′N, 0047′00′′W) with a mean depth of 3.6 m and a maximum depth of 6 m. “La Manga,” a sandy bar 22 km long and 100–900 m wide, acts as a barrier between the lagoon and the Mediterranean Sea. It is crossed by five more or less functional inlets called golas. Four are shallow (less than 1 m deep) and one of them, El Estacio, was widened and dug to a 5-m depth to make it a navigational channel. Altogether a total width of lagoon entrances is about 645 m, giving Mar Menor a restriction ratio of 0.015. Mar Menor is therefore a restricted lagoon according to the classification proposed by Kjerfve1 (see Chapter 6). There are two main islands and three other smaller islands, one of which is artificially connected to La Manga.