La Pedrera dam

Parks and Nature

It is a wetland of artificial origin was made in 1980 on the channel of the Alcorisa ravine, a wide erosive depression surrounded by low mountains, "Cabezo del Moro", "Cabezo de la Pedrera", "Loma larga" and "Lo Rufete" ", And with a substrate composed of gray and blue Miocene marls of high power that endow these lands with great impermeability. Inside this depression we find some marginal reliefs formed by margo-limestones and sandstones that provide gentle slopes towards the outside and stronger towards the interior. It can store 246.9 hm3 of water along the 1,272 ha that it occupies. This reservoir belongs to the Confederación Hidrográfica del Segura and is a key piece for the regulation and distribution of part of the waters coming from the Tajo Segura Transfer Channel. This flow is used for irrigation in irrigated crops of the Campo de Cartagena (Murcia) and for urban supply of a series of population centers of its territorial environment, managed through the Mancomunidad de los Canales del Taibilla. The potential vegetation in the peripheral zones to the lagoon are the maquis or shrubs formed by palm heart Chamaerops humilis, esparto Stipa tenacissima, black hawthorn Rhamnus lycioides or Pistada lentiscus mastic. In contrast, in recently altered areas we found large extensions of thyme Thymus hyemalis, Artemisia Artemisia herba-alba, Salso / a genistoideso bufalaga Timelaea hirsuta. Between both formations we can find small stands of Pinus halepensis pines and abandoned crops of Ceratonia siliqua carob and Olea europaea olive trees. It also inhabits the so-called crazy marshmallow Lavatera triloba, a plant of the Malvaceae family present in the Valencian Catalog of Endangered Flora Species and which appears as "Protected Non-Cataloged Species". The existing fauna presents a great diversity of habitats together with the influence of some nearby natural sites with high ecological value such as the SPA of Sierra Escalona and the Dehesa de Campoamor and the Salinas de La Mata and Torrevieja Natural Park. observe numerous species of birds associated with different types of habitats. Hundreds of herons nest in a large breeding colony that can hold more than 150 pairs of species such as the cattle egret Bubulcus ibis, the heron Ardea cinerea, the martinete Nycticorax nycticorax, the bittern / xobrichus minutus, the scythed heron Ardeola ralloides and the purple heron Ardea purpurea. The last two species are listed as "Vulnerable" according to the Valencian Catalog of Endangered Species of Fauna. Photograph of the La Pedrera reservoir Another well-represented group are the larolimícolas. Birds such as the little tern Sternula albifrons, the common tern Sterna hirundo or the black-billed snapper Gelochelidon nilotica form breeding colonies in those islets formed by the decrease in water level during the summer months. On the nude beaches that border part of the reservoir we find species of waders of high ecological value such as the stilt Himantopus himantopus, with more than 50 pairs registered in the reservoir, the small plover Charadríus dubius, which has one of the best southern populations in the reservoir of Alicante or the patinated plover Charadrius alexandrinus, a species in serious decline classified as vulnerable according to the Valencian Catalog of Endangered Species. For all the above mentioned together with other species of flora and fauna that we can find there, this reservoir is in the process of being cataloged as a Wet Zone of the Valencian Community.