Bay of Cadiz

The Bay of Cádiz, located in South West Spain, is a Ramsar and Natura 2000 site, featuring an inner and outer basin. The inner bay serves as a nursery for commercial fish and a crucial migratory bird stopover. Human activities include fisheries, salt mining, tourism, and port activities.

Characteristics

Habitat Types in Cadiz Bay

27%

Microphytobenthos

53%

seagrass meadows

11%

Salt marsh

Challenges

  • Great pressure due to the high density of urban areas and infrastructures in the direct environment of the marshes of the Bay of Cádiz.
  • Constant conflicts between uses and activities and between those and the conservation of ecosystems.
  • Demographic pressure for a constant urban expansion in a population with serious socio-economic problems.
  • Lack of sensitivity of the society of the Bay of Cádiz on the role intertidal and marsh ecosystems play in their well-being.
  • Lack of knowledge of the services offered by these ecosystems, little appreciation of the efforts that the administration must carry out for their conservation.
  • Lack of political interest, causing a deficit in the allocation of economic and human resources for its management.
  • The area has a great administrative legal complexity with multiple regulations and administrative provisions (DPMT, ENP, Ports, PGOU, etc.), multiple administrations with sometimes divergent priorities, and unresolved management problems.
  • Conservation (& restoration) of species and habitats in times of rapid changes and increasing human pressures, such as climate change.

Main objectives

  1. 1
    Opting for sustainable and socially appropriate use and management 
    (no footprint).
  2. 2
    Developing nature and quality, quantity and connection and restoring through design.
  3. 3
    Monitor, evaluate and investigate.
  4. 4
    Carry out explorations and planning studies to better substantiate solutions and measures.
  5. 5
    Increase social awareness of challenges and gain public and governance support for rewilding in an urban context.

Key Opportunities

  • Carbon storage and sequestration,
  • Recreation,
  • Water quality improvement.

Current and future restoration actions

Contact Person

Main contact
Sokratis Papaspyrou