More than 50% of the lagoons of Doñana have disappeared

SOURCE: PIXABAY

Eloy Revilla, director of the Doñana Biological Station (EBD-CSIC)yesterday said he was concerned about the state of Doñana National Park, currently in a “critical state”, since more than 50% of its lagoons have disappeared.

He said this during his speech at the Extraordinary Plenary Session of the Doñana Participation Council, where they discussed a draft law regulating the irrigated areas of the Doñana National Park, as well as its impact on the state of conservation of the Doñana aquifer.

Eloy Revilla said the following in said intervention:

Spain is condemned by the Court of Justice of the European Union for breaching its obligations under the Water Framework Directive and the Habitat Directive.Eloy Revilla

And adds:

A study published in the scientific journal Total Environmental Science shows that the deterioration of the Doñana lagoon system is widespread. Data indicates that 59% of Doñana’s largest lagoons have not been flooded since 2013.Eloy Revilla

Doñana suffers from a severe drought

The drought suffered by Spain, with increasingly long periods of time due to the climate changehas a particular incidence in the Doñana National Park, located in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula, specifically in the provinces of Cadiz, Huelva and Seville.

It is the most important wetland of the whole European continent, at the same time it is a transit point for many species of birds, many of which are in danger of extinction. The last permanent freshwater lagoon dried up last summer, a situation affecting 70% of temporary lagoons.

In 2020, the authorities denounced that three of the five aquifers of Doñana, where rainwater emerges to keep this ecosystem alive, were overexploited by agriculture. Today, the problem remains unsolved.

This protected natural space, heritage of the Unesco and biosphere reserve, is disappearing. According to the data, 80% of the lagoons of Doñana have dried up earlier than expected due to human activity, since we are changing their natural balance.

SOURCE: COMMON WIKIMEDIA

Eloy Revilla pointed out the consequences of the complete disappearance of 19% of the lagoons sampled in the study:

In Mediterranean systems, droughts are recurrent, but when the succession of years without flooding exceeds this recurrence, the vegetation of the lagoons disappears and they are colonized by terrestrial vegetation, which ends in the complete disappearance of the lagoons and the loss listed habitats. by the directive.Eloy Revilla

The three permanent lagoons of Doñana have ceased to exist. The lagoons of El Sopetón and La Dulce, which only dry up occasionally, now dry up frequently. The situation of Santa Olalla, the largest permanent lagoon in Doñana, was extreme in the summer of 2022, during which it completely dried up.

Lack of political will

Tomorrow, a bill presented by the PP and supported by Vox will be debated in the Parliament of Andalusia. Eloy Revilla made a point of clarifying his position:

The current exploitation of the aquifer is not sustainable. More resources are extracted than are regenerated annually through rainfall recharge, which is variable and decreasing, so this much-needed natural resource is being depleted.Eloy Revilla

You also mentioned that there is a clear lack of political will to solve the problem which has brought Doñana to “an unsustainable tipping point”:

This executive inaction is what has brought us to the unsustainable tipping point that Doñana finds herself in.Eloy Revilla

The director of the Biological Station of Doñana (EBD-CSIC) highlighted the need to provide water to farms that do not have a bill, which further aggravates the problem:

The current situation of Doñana is critical and it is not possible to wait another decade for decisions to adapt the demand for water to the availability it needs.Eloy Revilla

To end his speech, he offered several guidelines in an effort to prevent further degradation of Doñana:

• Update the aquifer condition assessment system.
• Urgently reduce the amount of water extracted from the aquifer to levels where recovery can begin.
• Urgently restore governance in the exploitation and management of water and soil in Doñana and its region.

Sources: Editorial Ambientum, CSIC, EFE VERDE, PUBLIC