El Delta de l'Ebre, una àrea geològica amenaçada

Abstract

Hereby we present a warning announcement that reveals the geological and environmental crises that is occurring in the Ebro Delta. These crises are due to natural agents, common to all the deltas in the world, and to human causes, of particular importance in the case of the Ebro Delta. The natural causes are essentially subsidence, eustatic sea level rise and climatic change. The Ebro Delta has been a virgin natural area up to the end of the nineteenth century. The form of the first human action was in the conversion of marshes into rice fields. The second was the construction of fluvial dams close to the delta area , the effects being the retention of sediments and the lamination of the floods. The third is the progressive conversion of deltaic areas, the dessication of some areas, the deviation of significant volumes of fresh water, the existence of a permanent human population, and the construction of tourist urbanizations and leisure seaports. As a whole these lead to a destruction of the shoreline, the loss of land, aquifer and river salinization, together with the chemical pollution of the river and the seawater, and the alteration or destruction of the ecosystems of an area that has been declared a natural park.