Biodiversity of Inland Saltscapes of the Iberian Peninsula

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The Iberian Peninsula hosts a wide variety of inland
saltscapes, from man-made solar evaporation salterns to
hypersaline lakes and salt rivers, most of them unknown in
other European countries. The present contribution deals
with this diversity of saltscapes, briefly introduces their
main features and locations, and presents a general
overview of their conservation status. Some of their natural
values are not even well understood by the scientists
themselves, and therefore they are very rare and fragile and
in need of protection. However, many of these natural
saltscapes have been and are currently under threat, having
been desiccated, used as waste dumps or polluted with
irrigation runoff. With respect to artificial salinas, these
have been halting their activity in the last decades.
Generally, historically salt-making operations occurred
where hypersaline environments already existed. These
locations were converted into commercial operations. As
these, too, are being phased out, the loss of production has
negatively affected the halophilic plant and animal
communities. These results are based on empirical field
observations, and a comprehensive inventory and status
report of Iberian saltscapes is needed to support the ideas
presented here.