Enviromental impacts
There are many threats to the marine ecosystem of the natural park caused by humans and their actions harmful to the environment.
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Illegal trawling
Trawling is one of the most impressive arts that exist, as they produce destruction in almost all types of background on which they drag.
Illegal Dragados
Illegal extraction of sand is another important problem for Posidonia grasslands. The sand is extracted for regeneration of beaches, for greenhouses or construction. Often, to save costs, this extraction is not done to the depths required or with the correct methods, getting to extract sand on the prairies same.
Waste
Discharges of dirty water from coastal populations are often only treated by decanting solids. Therefore the discharged waters are rich in matter organic matter and dissolved nutrients, that degrade the environment thanks a process of eutrophication. In addition, these waters are sweet, which can also damage the coastal vegetation.
It treats of purified water with secondary purification that fulfills the European norm and whose discharge is totally legal.
Aquaculture
The remains of food and droppings of fish fattened in cages are poured rich in organic matter, nitrogen and phosphorus, similar to that of the dirty waters of the populations coastal. The shadow of the cages can also affect the bottom plants and algae.
Coastal constructions
The construction of buildings, roads and boardwalks, often cut the sand feeding of the beaches, initiating its erosion and that of the marine grasslands. We try to regenerate the beaches by adding sand, but if the sediments are too thin, they produce turbidity, and can accelerate the decline of the prairies. The construction of ports, breakwaters and other land reclaimed from the sea, in addition to destroy ecosystems by direct burial and by the turbidity generated by the work, often also alter coastal currents permanently, producing erosion in some places, and burial in others.
Invasive algae
The increase in communications, the opening of the Suez Canal and the warming have accelerated the arrival of exotic species in the Mediterranean, a process that It also takes place in the rest of the Planet. About a tenth of the exotic species have a behavior invasive, that alters the autochthonous ecosystems. On the Mediterranean coast, two algae of the Caulerpa genus have invasive behavior (Caulerpa taxifolia y Caulerpa racemosa). The two invading Caulerpas release toxic substances (caulerpenins) against the species competitors and herbivores, and are able to have a heterotrophic metabolism (such as of animals), reducing oxygen in the bottom.
Intensive free anchoring
When a ship launches the anchor on a Posidonia meadow, it can start many plant beams during the maneuver, and also when lifting anchors if it claws, or when the wind rolls, causing the boat to rotate around the anchor, the chain crawls through the bottom pull more beams, producing that the recovery from one tourist season to the next cant happen, and degrades.
In order to address this problem, a total of 20 buoys as ecological or low impact moorings in different areas of the park:
