A disappearing wetland of karst origin: The laguna de la Alberca (Ronda, Málaga)

Abstract

A number of 19th-century topographical documents show a lake called Laguna de la Alberca near the village of Cuevas del Becerro in the Serranía de Ronda mountains (province ofMálaga). Subsequently, evidence of this wetland disappears and there are no cartographic documents or written references to it. Early 20th-century topographical maps at the scale of 1:50,000 do not include it, nor does the catalogue of Spanish lakes prepared by L. Pardo (published in 1948). It does not appear in the inventory of wetlands carried out in Spain in the final decades of the 20th century. Nor does it appear in the lists of wetlands considered “disappeared”, i.e. dried up and no longer functioning as such. In other words, the Alberca lake is, for all practical purposes, a wetland that was known and registered nearly two centuries ago, and that at some time in recent history “disappeared” from the official records and has been passed over by naturalists and scientists. This paper includes the first data on the hydrogeological characterisation of the Alberca lake and offers an explanatory model of its origin and karstic functioning, as well as pointing to the possible causes of its historical disappearance.