Walls of the saltpans of the Aveiro Lagoon, Portugal: current status and proposed new solutions using geosynthetics

Abstract

As a natural heritage of the region, the Aveiro Lagoon, in Portugal, allowed, over time, for people to live on its periphery and develop many different activities (agriculture, fishing, trades, industry and tourism), which resulted in social and human development of the region. One important activity at the time, that is now almost abandoned, was the salt production in the lagoon. As a consequence, today there is little to no maintenance of the walls of the saltpans, which leads to a progressive deterioration of those walls, with severe consequences for the hydrodynamic and environmental behavior of the lagoon. The main objective of the present work is to address the study of the construction or the rehabilitation of these walls, in order to re-establish some equilibrium in the lagoon. Thus, the current paper aimed at the characterization of the walls of the saltpans of the Aveiro Lagoon. On one hand, the traditional solution is briefly described and its hydraulic behavior is characterized by flume tests. On the other hand, two different new solutions, using geosynthetics, were designed and are briefly described. Such solutions are: 1) reinforcement of local fine soils using geosynthetics; 2) staked geobags filled with sand and a clayed centre (recreating the traditional solution). The stability of these solutions was analyzed and discussed and new research needs are pointed out.