Descripción: UNEP Protected Areas Programme.
«Coto Doñaña is a vast undeveloped coastal marshland, cut off from the Atlantic by extensive dunes and subject to seasonal variations in water level and salinity, the dry plain of summer becoming a wide shallow lake in winter. It overlies quaternary deposits mainly of sand sheets. It is composed of three main areas: marsh, dunes and heath. Almost half the reserve area is formed of marismas - freshwater marshes on accumulated clayey silt - where the Guadalquivir river delta has been deflected and ponded by a coastal sand spit (~27,000ha). These have been reduced by more than 80% over the past century.»
