Abstract
In coastal areas, there are economic activities that have been established for some time now – decades or even centuries – which help to maintain not only the local economy, but also to achieve a balanced relationships with nature. Tourism and leisure activities benefit from this balance. Sometimes, due to disturbing causes, these balances are destabilized, which generates setbacks. For example, in Salinas de Cabo de Gata (Almeria, Spain), heavy rains in the spring of 2022 caused an obstruction in the channel that carries seawater to the wetland located there. This occurrence caused a desiccation of the area that is dramatically affecting the waterfowl that depended on the evaporators of the salt flats. The involvement of different interested parties put pressure on to resolve the problem, which however was technically resolved, but whose results in a broad sense are gradual. In this chapter, this case study is explored in more detail.
TopLiterature Review
Historical Context of Production of Salt and Salt Pans
There are signs of salt production as a commodity of prime importance in the easternmost peoples of the globe, namely in China since a millennium BC (Flad et al., 2005). It is known that these peoples introduced and developed salt production techniques (Flad, 2011). There are also records of salt production in other continents such as Africa (Wilson, 1986) and America (Williams, 2009). However, the first signs of salt production are found in Europe in the Balkans and date back to the Neolithic period (Weller & Dumitroaia, 2005). In Europe, ancient records of salt production can still be found in various places (Rodrigues et al., 2011; Harding, 2013).
Salt production depends on several sources. The main sources for salt production, however, come from mines or sea water. To produce sea salt, coastal areas with permanently evaporating ponds – as they are subject to great sun exposure and are sometimes located in semi-arid areas – are generally used over time (Asencio, 2013).
In general, the sea salt production process in salt pans consists of introducing sea water into a reservoir and letting it precipitate in a chemical form called halite. It is from this transformation that common salt is obtained through long evaporation processes in ponds that acquire various colors from bluish to reddish tones (Oren & Meng, 2019).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Industrial Salt Pans: These are the areas where sea salt is produced, and usually consist of several ponds or lagoons, namely water reservoirs generally with the same salinity as the sea, evaporators that gradually graduate the sea water and change its color from blue to reddish and from cold water to warmer water, and finally crystallizers which are the places where salt is crystallized.
Cold Water Evaporators: In a salt pan production area these are ponds where the salt content of the water is still relatively low, and where the color of the water is blue or greenish.
Saltscape Tourism: This is a type of nature tourism that seeks out salt flat areas and/or their surroundings for outdoor leisure activities.
Crystallizers: In a salt pan production area the crystallizers are where the salts precipitate and are collected in the form of halite (where sodium chloride comes from).
Industrial Sea Salt: It is salt that is produced from sea water through evaporation processes. Production consists of a simple process: after precipitation, the salt is collected. Its production is carried out on a large scale using heavy machinery and generally requiring few workers.
Hot Water Evaporators (Calentadores): In a salt pan production area these are ponds where the salt content of the water is already relatively high, and where the color of the water changes to orange or reddish tones, denoting the presence of a green algae called Dunaliella salina , which increases the intensity of the color depending on the increase in water temperature.
Salt Marsh: It is a habitat consisting of land partially flooded by brackish or salt water, usually with tidal influence. It is rich in ecosystem services and carbon sequestration. Many waterfowl are associated with this habitat.