In the context of LIFE Montado-Adapt, project partners Casablanca Group and Dehesa El Guijo, together with La Dehesa nursery have developed a model of floating cork islands, with a modular structure, to be installed in ponds in order to create support for plants used in phytodepuration, thus improving water quality. Simultaneously, they promote and protect the presence of fauna (cormorants, ducks, crayfish, turtles, fish, etc.), besides increasing the biodiversity of aquatic flora with 12 installed autochthonous species.

One of these, Thypha, has a high interest, since an area of 3 m2 of Thypha purifies the volume of water equivalent to what a person pollutes in one day. By continuously oxygenating the water, it acts as an engine for the oxidation of the organic matter present, improving the overall quality of the water, which in turn leads to increased biodiversity (there are species sensitive to poor water quality). It should also be noted that planting on floating cork slabs, instead of on the banks, guarantees a lower mortality rate and very pronounced vegetative growth, which translates into an increase in carbon fixation, due to the absence of the constraint caused by the oscillation of the water level between winter and summer.

In addition to the depuration function, the reduction in evaporation and in water temperature variation in the ponds, together with added potential in terms of promoting biodiversity mentioned above, these islands can also be designed to complement animal feed by including forage species with a particular nutritional content.

We invite you to learn more about the characteristics of these structures on the website of our partners (www.ilasdecorchonatural.es) and to see them, in situ, during the next events that will take place on the project's farms!