ARCHIVED - Scientists warn that the ecosystem of the Mar Menor is a long way from recovering

A group of experts add fuel to the public debate over the marine environment of the lagoon

There has been a great deal of argument and discussion in recent weeks over the current state of the marine environment in the Mar Menor, and further fuel was added to the debate this week when a group of 15 scientists published a report in which they express their disagreement which the scientific committee appointed by the regional government of Murcia to monitor the lagoon and assert that the ecosystem is “seriously deteriorated and a long way from recovering”.

Those signing the report are based at the University of Murcia, the Spanish Oceanographic Institute, the Cebas-Csic applied biology centre, the University of Alicante, the Fundación Nueva Cultura del Agua and the Polytechnic University of Cartagena (UPCT), and they express concern over the messages being transmitted by the official scientific committee to the general public despite the fact that some of them actually sit on that committee. They claim it is not “operative, having not convened for over a year”, and that some of the statements made are “irresponsible, opportunistic and improvised”.

In short, the scientists conclude that the ecosystem of the Mar Menor, far from being “under control”, is “unbalanced and a long way from recovering”. The re-appearance of a greenish colour in the water is not, they say, the result of occasional run-off, variations in wind direction and higher water temperatures, but instead is a consequence of an excess of nutrients coming from both inside and outside the lagoon. In their opinion the Mar Menor has ceased to be “oligotrophic” (poor in nutrients) and is now once again “eutrophic” (i.e. it contains an excess of nutrients), a situation which is very difficult to reverse in the long term and impossible in the short term.

One way of simplifying the analysis is to view the algal bloom of 2016, which caused the water in the Mar Menor to turn green, was due to an “excess of plant life”, and that excess was in turn due to an excess of nitrates and other nutrients in the water.

In this context they warn that proposed short-term measures such as dredging or widening the “golas” (the channels through which water flows between the Mar Menor and the Mediterranean) or re-directing natural run-off from the lagoon to the open sea of the Mediterranean are little more than knee-jerk reactions, and are incompatible with the long-term regeneration of the marine environment.

Their statement concludes with an assertion that those signing feel “obliged” to publish this warning in order to provide an element of “transparency” to the scientific debate over the condition of the Mar Menor.

Image: @MarMenorKO

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