The Trabucador bar isthmus

Six kilometer isthmus

The Trabucador bar is a six kilometer isthmus that connects the Ebro delta with the Baña peninsula. It is located in the municipality of San Carlos de la Rápita (province of Tarragona, Spain). It is a very fragile space, the result of the deposition of sand by sea currents.

In times of storms, this space is invaded by sea water and thus connects the Mediterranean Sea with the Alfaques Bay, thus breaking communications by land.1 Its extension, along with the coast of the municipalities de Alcanar and San Carlos de la Rápita, delimit the Bahía de los Alfaques.

The Trabucador bar is covered by the Trabucador Trail, which reaches the Salinas de la Trinidad, in La Baña. The beaches are long, although close to the limit marked by the path. They also have a slow deepening into the water, so that the waters are warm and the tides seem to have a higher incidence.

Most of the bar is made up of sandbanks without any type of vegetation, although some vegetated dunes can be distinguished and, at the edges of the bay, several halophytic communities. Beach grass (Elymus farctus) (habitat of community interest; code 2110) predominates in the dune area, with some alien species in the Delta, such as Otanthus maritimus and Loto creticus. Regarding the halophilous communities, the reeds (Juncetalia maritimi) and the espartales (habitats of community interest, codes 1410 and 1320) and the communities of Salicornia and other annual plants, colonizing clayey or sandy saline soils (code 1310) stand out.1 ​

Several actions have been carried out with the aim of restoring communications and stabilizing the space (creation of artificial dunes, closing points open by the sea) and giving it a recreational use (car park, service area, etc.).

The concern at this point is that these actions have contributed to trivializing the area’s landscape and have not always been efficient. Currently, the overexploitation of the space, especially in summer, and the traffic on the Trabucador bar are the main factors that have a negative influence on the space. The space is part of the Natura 2000.