ARCHIVED - Murcia government offers funding of 7 million euros for Mar Menor research

In the meantime scientists warn that over half of the bed of the lagoon has been devastated

September flooding caused the runoff of 100,000 tons of sediment into the Mar Menor

The regional government of Murcia has announced that 7.31 million euros are to be invested in the subsidization of research and development projects designed to recover and regenerate the marine environment of the Mar Menor, making the funding available to public research bodies, universities and other investigation units.

This budget is co-financed by European Development Funds and the regional government, and is set aside specifically for technical and scientific research between now and 2022, according to the regional ministry of Agriculture and the Environment. In analysing which of the projects applying for subsidization will be successful the ministry will base their decisions on which are most closely in line with the official lines of research established, as well as their relationship with the objectives of the regional government in protecting the lagoon.

The chief areas identified for research are the analysis of the sources of the harmful nitrates which contaminate the Mar Menor, the monitoring of ecological processes and water in the Campo de Cartagena and the forecasting of developments regarding water quality and sediment in the lagoon.

All research into the rapidly deteriorating environment in the Mar Menor is to be welcomed, of course, but after the dramatic gota fría storm and ensuing flooding of mid-September and the appearance of tens of thousands of dead fish and crustaceans on the beaches of the lagoon a few weeks later there are many who feel that it is now time to take action rather than merely to analyse the situation still further. This sense of urgency is underlined in a report published on Monday by biologists and oceanographers which concludes that over half of the sea bed in the Mar Menor has been “devastated” by the process of eutrophication which first became apparent to many in 2016, and which has returned this year even prior to the process being accelerated by the storm in September.

The report states that the gota fría storm resulted in around 100,000 tons of sediment flooding into the Mar Menor, containing between 500 and 1,000 tons of nitrates, over 100 tons of phosphates and 35 tons of ammonia. As a result around 9,000 of the 17,000 hectares of sea bed are believed to have been stripped of all life due to a lack of oxygen reaching the plants and fish.

To say that the outlook is bleak according to the group of experts concerned is understating the case. They talk of a “profound degradation” of the Mar Menor which is becoming “chronic” (in the sense of “permanent”, adding that this has left the lagoon vulnerable to multiple risks and that at any time more episodes of mass deaths among marine fauna could occur – always assuming, of course, that such marine life remains.

The ten experts signing the report are Juan Manuel Ruiz Fernández of the Instituto Español de Oceanografía, or IEO, Víctor M. León (IEO), Francisca Giménez Casalduero (University of Alicante), José Álvarez Rogel (Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena), Gonzalo González Barberá (Cebas-CSIC), Julia Martínez (Fundación Nueva Cultura del Agua), Miguel Ángel Esteve Selma (University of Murcia), Rosa Gómez Cerezo (University of Murcia), Francisco Robledano Aymerich (University of Murcia) and Lázaro Marín Guirao (IEO), all but two of them former members of the scientific committee formed by the regional government of Murcia to monitor conditions in the Mar Menor. The first eight named all chose to resign from the committee on the grounds that they disagreed with the way it was run and with some of the conclusions made public, feeling that it was too closely controlled by the government.

For example, in 2018 when the transparency of the water improved they were not in agreement with the government’s interpretation that this meant the Mar Menor had recovered, harbouring reservations about the water quality measurements. In the episode of eutrophication in 2016 it has been calculated that 85 per cent of underwater vegetation was lost, denying the lagoon one of the key elements in regulating the level of nutrients in the water and, when the dead plants decomposed, filling the water with nitrogen, phosphorous and organic matter.

As for possible means of aiding the recovery of the Mar Menor, they warn that even if all run-off containing nitrates were eliminated the imbalances caused by years of contamination would remain. However, they see a future in the creation of “green filters” like the ones which were proposed but never materialized after the crisis of 2016, measures to prevent soil erosion such as the planting of hedgerows and other “green” solutions.

Short-term plans such as increasing the exchange of water between the Mar Menor and the Mediterranean, they add, are not the solution as they do not tackle the root of the problem and could bring about disastrous secondary effects such as changing the level of salinity in the Mar Menor.

IMages: @MarMenorKO

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