The Bay of Cadiz is one of the most prosperous naval ports in Spain. It is an intersection where is used to export and import various goods from other countries nearby. Unlike other naval ports, the city has the special landscape characteristic that it is encompassed by real natural, the area that has not been invaded by people, and artificial natural area, the area that has been manipulated for the salt pans operation given the interesting pattern of landscape, with the high ecological interest. Consisting of a flat landscape of sandy beach, marshes, salt pans, fresh water lakes and tidal inlets, the Cadiz bay natural area supports a surprising wealth of wildlife, which is the reason why the area has been declared as the protected area. Although the natural part helps to activate the tourism around the site which increases the revenue of the city, the limitation of industrial development and urban growth was caused by this preserved area. This limitation causes the decline of the economy within the city which also leads to the acceleration of the rate of the youth unemployment in Cadiz.
Salt has been extracted from the bay since Phoenician times. The Ancient people used the salt for preserving foods. By the late 19th century more than 10,000ha of marshland had been turned into around 150 salt pans, but these went into decline with the increasing use of refrigeration, which superseded salting as a way of preserving food. Furthermore, when Spain lost the American colonies Cadiz was hit with an economic shock from which it never recovered. With the onset of the Spanish and American war and subsequent Spanish Civil war, Cadiz's decline was accelerated, putting the city into an economic rut that the city is still trying to get out of. Few salt pans are in operation today. The salt pan industry has had a major impact on the bay, but the worst damage to the marshes was caused in the 1970s by the infilling the abandoned salt pans to make land for construction, to build houses, factories or tourist complexes. These threats to the environment were halted in 1989 with the creation of the natural park and the wetland area is today one of the most important in Europe, supporting a rich variety of plants and many kind of species.
The objective of this project is to mediate the contrast between the city and the preserved area which subsequently leads to the consolidation of all kinds landscape, giving an opportunity for the city to expand on the protected wetland and use it as another way to improve the economy within the site, together with preserving this unique natural landscape that has been inherited from the ancient period. This worth natural landscape has a large variety of natural resources that could be support both ecological processes, linked to tourism and occupation of Cadiz’s population, and urban growth. However, this area has to be undertaken by positive measures on the landscape for the preservation of unique landscape in order to create sustainable life for both people and species living around.