Numerous birds choose these wetlands as their habitat, breeding area or stopover on their migrations.
We set our sights on the great salty plains of Aragon, Sheets of water that are sometimes several times saltier than seawater. Some of them are presented totally white when the heat and the wind leave them completely dry. It is then that the landscape becomes almost lunar, white and hypnotic.
In Aragon, hundreds of kilometers from the sea, salinity gushes out of the earth's crust in active mines like the Swirls (Zaragoza), the salt exploitation that took place in new them or those that gave their name to the localities of Peralta de la Sal (Huesca) and Arcos de las Salinas (Teruel) . In Aragón we also find the largest salt lake in Spain, Gallocanta.
Calanda salt lagoon
"Salt meant centuries ago, as much as oil represents today... and in the future fresh water will take over," predicts Katia Hueso Kortekaas, Director of IPAISAL, the Salt Heritage and Landscape Institute, who answers the questions of this nearby saline world, unknown to most.
Spain is a country rich in salt flats, especially its eastern half, because 200 million years ago it was covered by a sea. As the water gradually receded, the salt was deposited in different layers: crystallized as gem or in brine aquifers.
Salt was a strategic asset for centuries, essential in food preservation. It was admitted as a payment method and that is where the current word "salary" comes from. Katia Hueso reminds us that up to 14,000 different uses for salt and its components (sodium and chlorine).
The generalization of refrigerators and the lowering of international transport made salt mines unprofitable in many places and abandoned. Nowadays, it is cheaper to obtain salt directly from the sea.
Salt lagoons are scarce in Europe, they can only be found in Spain, Turkey, Hungary and Austria
The cultural heritage generated by salt mines it is a tourist resource to which salt-producing towns cling. Either in the form of spas or experiential tourism proposals, The idea is to value these facilities as a visitor attraction pole. So we see in the recovery of the Roman salt mines of Peralta de la Sal (Huesca), declared in 2007 as an Asset of Cultural Interest.
THE SALT LAGOONS
The large salty surfaces of the world are concentrated in Central Asia, from Turkey to Mongolia, and also on the east face of the American mountain ranges, both in the north (Utah Salt Lake) and in South America. there we find the Chilean salt lakes and also the Salar de Uyuni (Bolivia), It occupies more than 10,000 square kilometers. It is such a perfect and extensive plain that it is used to calibrate altimeters and other satellite instruments. Sentinel 1A, launched by the European Space Agency, chose the image of this Bolivian salty mass among its first images of its mission.
Salt lakes are rare in Europe, they can only be found in Spain, Turkey, Hungary and Austria, being those that are located in Spanish territory those that present more extreme conditions of salinity.
In Aragon there are numerous salty endorheic lagoons, that is, devoid of river outlets. In addition to the aforementioned Gallocanta, there are Bujaraloz, Sástago, Zuera, Chiprana, Alcañiz and Calanda. They are usually sets of buckets, in which permanent water lagoons alternate with others that are dry in the middle months of the year. The Chiprana salt lake (Zaragoza) is the only deep salt lake with permanent waters in Western Europe.
Permanent water lagoons alternate with others that are dry in the central months of the year
SALINE ECOSYSTEMS
Saline lagoons are ecosystems that are as fragile as they are scientifically interesting. Most of them are protected as a natural space under different figures. The protection reaches the many birds who choose these wetlands as a habitat, breeding area or stopover on their migratory routes. In them we will also find coastal species, such as spoonbills or flamingos.
The concentration of salt defines these ecosystems, which They usually present endemisms and also living beings more typical of coastal areas. In the salty lagoons of the Monegros, for example, a microscopic crustacean never before cataloged was found, the Candelacypiris aragonicus and therefore took the surname of the region that houses it.
The plants of these environments show a great adaptation to salinity. They are usually succulent, that is, capable of retaining water in their thick stems. so does Salicornia (Salicornia europaea) , which changes its bright green color to reddish tones in autumn. This plant is gastronomically more and more appreciated by its iodized flavor and crisp texture.
Katia Hueso defines these ecosystems as “very productive, with a great abundance of bacteria and microorganisms with very interesting physiological adaptations to the very hostile conditions of salinity, ultraviolet radiation or temperature that occur in them. Many species have not been sufficiently studied and even today new applications of these adaptation mechanisms are being discovered for industry and medicine” and she highlights its scientific value. “They can also be seen in the lagoons primitive organisms -from the evolutionary point of view- that show what life was like on Earth millions of years ago. They are, in short, a window to the past and a door to the future”.
Salicornia (Salicornia europaea)