beaches

close its beaches due to the thermal blowout

by

heat waves are changing the behavior of tourists in Spainbut we cannot forget the people who live 365 days a year in tourist cities. Those who travel there can avoid doing so during the hottest times, but when it comes to your place of residence it is not so easy. Beach baths can be quick solutions to beat the heat. However, when this is too extreme, anything out of the water can be very dangerous. For this reason, the Alicante city council will close the beaches today starting at 5 p.m. due to the red alert declared in this third heat wave of the summer. No beaches, no parks. This decision affects both to the beaches, as well as to the parks and gardens. And, in reality, it is not only due to the heat wave. In fact, if that were the only reason, perhaps the beach closure would have been set in the middle of the day, when temperatures are higher. It was done at 5 p.m., because from that time on it is expected that there will be thermal bursts, which would cause very strong gusts of wind, as well as sudden increases in temperature. Revenge what? A thermal blowout is a phenomenon that silk due to the formation of precipitation that never reaches the ground, since on the descent it encounters a layer of very warm and dry air, which evaporates it. The evaporation process requires energy, which is extracted from the surrounding air, cooling it suddenly. The cold air tends to fall downwards, so a downdraft is formed, which will increasingly have a larger column of air above it. The weight of this compresses said current, so that it heats up suddenly, giving rise to increases of about 5ºC in a very few minutes. Sometimes they can even rise 15ºC. On the other hand, when this current of hot air falls suddenly above the earth’s surface, it can no longer continue to descend, so it expands violently in all directions, like the stream of water from a tap that we suddenly turn on. The result is very intense winds, practically hurricane-force. It should be noted that layers of very hot and dry air that give rise to blowouts are more frequent during a heat wavewhich is why these phenomena are becoming more and more frequent. Also terraces and nightstands. In Spain, the decision has already been made to prohibit the opening of terraces in bars during the hottest hours of the day during heat waves. For this reason, in Alicante, terraces and nightstands cannot be opened between 5 and 9 p.m. The Santa Bárbara castle will also be closed and attention will be paid to umbrellas, flower pots and any other object that could cause urban accidents due to the wind. Be careful with the trees. Finally, the City Council has warned residents to avoid walking through wooded areas, to avoid possible accidents if a tree falls due to the wind. Images | Zarateman In Xataka | Sea temperature continues to rise and experts are clear: “It is partly favored by the start of a new El Niño phenomenon”

The 48 “black flag” beaches that Spain has this summer, on a map

by

Summer has its own rituals. And one of those more usually like to the town councils of the coastal areas is to boast of their ‘Blue Flags’the distinctive features that have identified the most comfortable sandy beaches and marinas for decades. In Spain, however, there is another much less comfortable recognition: the ‘Black Flags’banners of Ecologists in Action that point out the opposite. They basically serve to locate on the map the beaches most affected by pollution or poor environmental management. And we already know those of 2026. What has happened? That Ecologistas en Acción has just starred in one of the most uncomfortable moments of the year for coastal cities: the presentation from his ‘Black Flags’ report. Said like this, it may not seem like a big deal, but what the organization does is publicly point out the 48 beaches in the country (both in mainland Spain and the archipelagos, Ceuta and Melilla) that have received the worst results from their quality examination. It is interesting because its authors are dedicated to evaluating two aspects: pollution and the efficiency of environmental management. Are there many beaches? In Spain there are more than 3,500 beaches registered and the Ecologistas en Acción report includes only 48 black flags. It is a low figure. Especially if we take into account that there are 677 with blue badge. That does not mean that the vast majority of sandbanks are in optimal conditions. That there are only 48 ‘failures’ is explained by the NGO’s way of working: although its technicians analyze more than 8,000 km of coast, they limit themselves to giving two flags per province. One for dirt. The other due to mismanagement. “The report, as in previous years, includes the most serious environmental conditions on the Spanish coast, but not all. Unfortunately there could be many more flags that we award year after year,” explains the environmental organization. Their report is interesting for another reason: it is not a new study or a study that just came out of nowhere. It has been taking place since 2005 and its authors have included a “restoration proposal” for each specific case, a kind of diagnosis with which the NGO aspires to contribute to the recovery of the Spanish coast. Why are the beaches suspended? Each of the 48 black flags points to a specific problem, but in general the NGO groups them into eight categories. The most common (responsible for 14 distinctions) are “discharges, deficiencies in sanitation systems and serious purification problems.” Next in frequency are “affects to biodiversity”, causing another nine black flags, and urban developments and works that invade the maritime-terrestrial public domain, which has also caused eight black flags. In seven other cases the problem has been “chemical contamination.” The list is completed by beaches where there is “environmental degradation” caused by tourism and overcrowding, others where the NGO has registered “unnecessary or poorly managed works” and the accumulation of garbage, waste and microplastics. In a specific case, on the Santander coastal paththe flag was assigned for “damage to historical and cultural heritage.” Do we know anything else? Yes. In your report The NGO includes a slap on the wrist to the administrations of the coastal regions, to which it warns: “A good part of the coasts have been and continue to be subject to a continuous process of degradation.” “The regression of beaches, destruction of wetlands and dune systems, marine pollution, loss of biodiversity and increased vulnerability to storms and floods are some of the most visible consequences of a model that puts the coastline at the service of economic interests,” ditch. Images | Ecologists in Action In Xataka | Spain now has more pets than children. So more and more cities open their beaches to dogs in summer

Spain has 15 million pets that cannot set foot on a good part of its beaches. That’s something that’s starting to change.

by

It comes with going to a park or taking a walk through any city in the country, but in case there were still any doubts, the Government recently provided definitive proof that Spain is a land of pets. The first official census has counted neither more nor less than 15.2 millionof which 7.6 are dogs. With such figures it is better understood that, as summer approaches, more and more people are asking themselves a question: Can we go to the beach with our four-legged friends? The answer is: it depends. Reviewing the figures. We mentioned it before: in Spain there are many (many) pets. It is something that we intuited thanks to the censuses carried out by feed manufacturers, companies dedicated to the care of pets or the Companion Animal Identification Network (REIAC), but which has been confirmed by the first official study of the State. It details that in Spain there are 15,171,569 pets, of which 7,562,893 are dogs. They represent, respectively, 14.1 and 9.6% more than in 2021. Beyond the raw data, the census confirm that in Spain there are now more pets than people under 30 years of age or who live in the country almost double of dogs than small children. Hence the pet economy this awakening the appetite of more and more companies (from feed manufacturers to insurance companies and venture capital) or that, when planning their summer vacations, they have already many families looking for accommodation (or even destinations) pet friendly. To the beach with the dog. Proof of this enormous interest is that every year the blogs specialized in pets (and also some other generalist) publish maps and online guides to dog-friendly beaches during the bathing season, which usually runs from June to September. Their ‘photograph’ does not always coincide, but usually includes more than a hundred sandy beaches. Some place the total count around 130 beaches. Others raise it to more than 150. That disparity is not surprising because the list can change from one year to the next and not all sandy beaches that accept dogs do so in the same way. Fine spinning. Last year, in fact, RTVE published a map in which he differentiated between three main types of beach, depending on the freedom that the dogs had on each one. The most comfortable for pets would be the ‘complete’ beaches, those to which they can freely access all year round. In second place would be the ‘partial’ sandbanks, which tolerate pets, although with small print. For example, the presence of dogs can be restricted to only a defined stretch or a certain time slot, such as at night, when the number of bathers is reduced on the beaches. Finally there would be what RTVE calls ‘nearby’ beachesstretches of coast close to urban areas in which access is allowed in at least part of the sandy area. Why so much complication? Basically, because the Coastal Lawthe framework standard that regulates the maritime-terrestrial public domain, leaves a wide gap that have been covered by the regional and local administrations. And that challenge has not been faced in the same way everywhere. What’s more, sometimes the topic has generated intense social, political and institutional debates. One of the latest examples has been left by Gijón on account of his new ordinance municipal on animal welfare: in March, during the allegations phase, the Principality he was reluctant to the presence of dogs on the city’s beaches, although later nuanced that the decision depends on the City Council. From the beaches to Change.org. Another interesting case is found in A Coruña, where it has been activated a collection of signatures in Change so that the Consistory allows dogs on the beaches in summer in night timefrom 9:30 p.m. to 10:00 a.m. Right now the local ordinance prohibits pets on beaches between June 1 and September 30, with the only exception of the Bens sandy area, which is considered a “dog beach”. Along the Spanish coast there are many more With these characteristics, which are added to other sandy areas where dogs are allowed during the summer, although at night. One figure, two conclusions. let there be between 100 and 150 beaches that can be considered (to a greater or lesser extent) dog-friendly) leaves several conclusions. The first, as recently reported on the Sr.Perro blog, is that the number of sandy areas in which there is a clear regulation that allows enjoyment with dogs is very small. In general, it is estimated that Spain has somewhat more 3,500 beaches. That the proportion is so low is explained, in part, by the requirements that all those sandy areas must comply with opt for the badge of ‘Blue Flag’. The “Guide to Blue Flag criteria” of 2025 states that “the prohibition of domestic animals on the beach must cover the entire area of ​​the candidate beach, including the bathing area.” “Local regulations must prohibit the presence of domestic animals on the beach during bathing season, even outside bathing hours,” the document insistswhich cites WHO studies on “microbiological risks” associated with the presence of excrement on beaches. Gaining weight (little by little). That is the second conclusion that the sandbank map leaves. dog-friendly. Although they remain a minority, some sources they specify that their number has been increasing due to the increase in the pet census and citizen pressure, which sometimes results in campaigns like the one activated this year (also in 2025) in A Coruña. A quick check on Google shows that Sanlucar de Barrameda, Marin, Vila-seca, Cadiz, Punta Umbria either Almeriaamong other populations, have taken steps in recent years (or months) to make it easier for people to enjoy the places of a dip. Image | Nathalie Anfuso (Unsplash) In Xataka | Your cat asks you to cuddle and then bites you. It’s not evil, it’s that you don’t understand its signs

It is increasingly common to find jellyfish on Mediterranean beaches before summer. And it’s a bad sign

by

Last weekend and the one before that I tried to swim at the beach. However, upon seeing a few jellyfish I ended up deciding to spend time reading in the sand. The worst of the afternoon was not that. I found more annoying a few teenagers playing soccer a few meters from my towel. Jellyfish, after all, are in their habitat. But it is true that I had never seen in my entire life jellyfish in the month of May. I did some research and discovered that in recent years their arrival in the Mediterranean at this point in spring has become more and more frequent. They are even starting to appear in other waters in which they are not normally so abundant. Logically, the first thought that came to mind was that is related to global warming. The temperature of the Mediterranean has risen at a dizzying rate in recent years. However, I had the feeling that there must be something more. After all, the water has been warming for many years, but this boom in jellyfish populations (known as bloom, by the way) seems more recent to me. To answer my questions, I have contacted Jose Carlos Báez, Chief Program Researcher at the Spanish Institute of Oceanography, CSIC. As I feared, warming water plays a role, but there are even more factors that affect this uncontrolled proliferation that is becoming more and more noticeable. Three phases to give rise to adult jellyfish Although there are small variations between some species and others, in general the reproductive cycle of jellyfish consists of three phases. On the one hand there are the larvae, which float in the water until they find a place to cling to on the seabed. When they achieve this, they move on to the polyp phase, which can last up to a year. When conditions are favorable, the polyp fragments, releasing the ephyras, which are small immature jellyfish that, over time, become the adult jellyfish. The transition from polyp to jellyfish It is known as strobilation and depends on factors such as the temperature of the water, the oxygen dissolved in it or the availability of food. Jellyfish are only released into the water if they are going to be able to live in it. The surface temperature of the water is a determining factor. In fact, it has been observed that with an increase of 1.7°C The rate of asexual reproduction in the polyps of some species is accelerated by 20%. Therefore, strobilation normally occurs at the beginning of summer. It may vary between species. In some it occurs at the end of spring, but it is more common for it to take place from June onwards. According to José Carlos Báez, this is causing “a dilation of the reproductive period“, so we are seeing more generations of jellyfish in a single season. They arrive earlier and leave later. Not everything is going to be global warming The massive proliferations that we are seeing with increasing frequency on beaches are known as blooms. As we have seen, global warming is causing us to start seeing jellyfish earlier and stop seeing them later, but it does not seem to be the cause of the blooms. “It is difficult to affirm with complete certainty that the total biomass of jellyfish in the Mediterranean has increased due to climate change, mainly because we do not have sufficiently long and homogeneous historical series that allow us to compare the current situation with that of past decades,” says Báez. “However, there is evidence that jellyfish blooms, as well as the arrival of large swarms in coastal areas, appear to be increasingly frequent and prolonged.” The problem of overfishing “In a healthy ecosystem, teleost fish eat especially zooplankton, in which ephyras are found,” explains Báez. Among those fish that ephyras eat, sardines stand out, for example. On the other hand, adult jellyfish are typically preyed upon by turtles, but also by large fish such as tunas, to which tuna belongs. All of this, taken together, helps keep jellyfish populations more or less stable. Because of overfishingthere are fewer and fewer predators for jellyfish. There are, for example, fewer sardines being eaten in their ephyra phase and fewer tuna eating adult jellyfish. If we add to all this that more generations of jellyfish are born in a season due to warming water, we have the perfect cocktail for the appearance of blooms. The whiting that bites its tail (pun intended) In 2022, José Carlos Báez’s team published a study in which another less known relationship was described between the populations of jellyfish and sardines or anchovies. We have already seen that fish feed on the zooplankton in which ephyras are found, so they can help regulate jellyfish populations. However, what happens next is not so well known. Adult jellyfish can also feed on the eggs of sardines and anchovies. Therefore, if there are too many jellyfish, they can deplete the sardine population, so there will be fewer of these adult fish to continue feeding on the ephyras. As a result, there are even more jellyfish and we start again. The balance between one predator and another is broken and clearly leans towards the proliferation of jellyfish. Furthermore, in that study a relationship was also found between the proliferation of jellyfish and the decrease in weight of adult sardines. And, in turn, adult jellyfish also feed on zooplankton, which is why they compete with sardines and anchovies for food. If there are many, they do not allow them to feed properly. Not everything is jellyfish in the gelatinization of water With the proliferation of jellyfish, something known as water gelatinization is occurring. Logically, these animals, with their gelatinous appearance, have a great influence. But they are not the only ones who favor that aspect. Other gelatinous animals also proliferate, such as ctenophores. In addition, the water looks cloudier due to excess algae. This is because great eutrophication is occurring in the Mediterranean. … Read more

Geologists studied the sand on one of the D-Day beaches in Normandy. They discovered that 4% is still shrapnel

by

More than 80 years have passed since “D-Day” and yet his memory is still very present on the beaches of Normandy. And not in an ethereal and symbolic way. No. Beyond memory, the landing of the allied troops in the French region in June 1944 maintains a palpable mark on its sandy shores. One that can be touched and seen, although the latter requires an electron microscope. This was confirmed years ago by a group of geologists who collected a sample of sand on Omaha Beach. When they took it to their laboratory and studied it in detail, they discovered, astonished, that 4% were actually shrapnel remains. A microscopic memory of a historical date. Walking in Normandy. That’s what the Geology professor did one day in 1988. Earle McBrideof the University of Texas at Austin, and his colleague Dane Picard, of the University of Utah. While conducting a field study in France they decided to take a break and visit the famous Omaha Beachone of the main landing points for D-Day in Normandy. They didn’t have much luck with their Norman voyage. The day they walked along the sandy beach, which is around eight kilometers long, was unpleasant, cold and windy; But that didn’t stop McBride and Picard from taking home a souvenir that honored their training: a small sample of sand. Some time later they decided to rescue the bag with those Normandy beans and observe them under the microscope. And the surprise came. What McBride found in that sample of sand collected at Omaha Beach caught his attention. In addition to remains of quartz and other materials that he already took for granted, the geologist observed tiny metal fragments. When studying them in detail with the microscope, he found that they had a rounded shape, were rough, laminated and had a dull shine, with some spots of rust. Some pieces were around a millimeter. Others did not go beyond 0.06mm. The remains of the battle. Thus, reduced to millimeter metal beads eroded by waves and the passage of time, they may have been difficult to identify, but McBride ended up reaching a fascinating conclusion. What he had before him were vestiges of the Normandy landings. “They turned out to be shrapnel from the World War II invasion. Upon closer examination, he also saw iron and glass beads that had resulted from the intense heat unleashed by the explosions in the air and sand,” detail from the University of Texas at Austin. His discovery was so curious that, together with PicardProfessor McBride decided to prepare an article and publish it in the magazine The Sedimentary Record. Foreseeable. “Of course it is not surprising that shrapnel was added to the sand on Omaha Beach at the time of the battle, but it is surprising that it has survived more than 40 years and is undoubtedly still there today,” they commented both experts. His sample was from the late 80s and the report They published it in 2011; but everything indicates that the situation remains similar today. In 2011 the experts they calculated that corrosion would still take a century to destroy the shrapnel grains. A well-measurable footprint. If McBride and Picard’s study is surprising, it is because it has done more than just confirm that—decades after D-Day—remnants of shrapnel are still scattered along the beaches of Normandy. Equally or more curiously, experts have managed to provide a fairly precise idea of ​​what that footprint in the sands represents. After examining the sample in detail, the Texas geologist confirmed that the metals make up 4% of sand. The data is illustrative, although McBride and Picard slip that there could be variations depending on where and when the sand is collected. “Due to possible plasticization of shrapnel and heavy minerals by waves and currents on the day we collected our sample, we do not know to what extent it is representative of beach sand as a whole.” Omaha was one of the major landing points on D-Day, but there were other beaches in Normandy that the Allies reached in the Operation Neptune. Today they are known as Utah, Sword, Gold and Juno. With expiration date. Although the beads discovered by American geologists are a peculiar souvenir of D-Day and have survived decades, McBride and Picard warned years ago that they will not last forever. The shrapnel remains could resist erosion for millennia, but when studying the grains, geologists discovered rust particles, leading them to be pessimistic about their future. “The waves agitate the iron fragments, which in turn removes some of the rust and exposes fresh material, more prone to oxidation, which in turn falls away, and so on,” points out the University of Texas. A century of memory. “The result is that they will become smaller and smaller and eventually storms or hurricanes will drag them off the beach,” McBride reflected in 2011. Their calculations suggested that the 4% of shrapnel identified at Omaha Beach would be reduced to insignificance in a matter of a century. They will remain to remember the Allied landing, yes, the monuments and the memory. Image | Person-with-No Name (Flickr) In Xataka | The US landed on an empty island during World War II. In nine days it had more than 300 casualties *An earlier version of this article was published in June 2024

Tenerife was known for the sun and its beaches. It will soon house one of the five most powerful supercomputers in Spain

by

Tenerife will have a new supercomputer. I already had two with the names of Teide and of Anagaand they will now be joined by a new and promising project called the Atlantic Supercomputing Center. With it, it is hoped to turn the Canary Islands into a new nerve center for retaining and attracting talent in the technological field. Up to 10 million euros of investment. This new project It is a collaboration of the Cabildo of Tenerife and the Institute of Technology and Renewable Energies (ITER) with the German technology giant Bechtle. It will have an initial investment of 5.5 million euros, which could rise to 10 million as its four phases are deployed (two for storage, two for computing) oriented by the demand for the center and its resources. The expansion is flexible and Bechtle will supply the latest technology available at the time of project execution to avoid the use of obsolete components. The fifth supercomputer by power in Spain. By integrating with the existing nodes, the Atlantic Supercomputing Center will achieve a combined power that will place it as the fifth most powerful supercomputer in the entire national territory. It is also expected to enter the prestigious TOP500 list which brings together the most powerful supercomputers from around the world. Hybrid architecture. The rise of AI has meant that the project has an architecture that will allow working with both more conventional workloads and those intended for projects in the field of artificial intelligence. Thus, its architecture will be hybrid: CPU: although it has not been specified which processors it will use, it has been indicated that the supercomputer will have 13 nodes with 288 cores each, which will allow for more than 3,000 process cores to execute scientific tasks, for example. GPU: there will also be four specialized nodes with a total of 32 Nvidia H200 NVL cards, which will allow training of large language models and the development of AI projects. Performance: this expansion is expected to provide between 1.3 and 1.4 PFLOPS of global computing power (close to 300 TFLOPS in CPU and almost one PFLOP in GPU), indicated those responsible for the Cabildo de Tenerife and ITER. Hours instead of months. The president of the Cabildo, Rosa Dávila, stood out that local laboratories, the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and the University of La Laguna among others will be able to access these resources to be able to compute in hours what previously could take months. Juan José Martínez, from ITER, recalled how during the pandemic the Teide-HPC supercomputer It was one of the five centers in all of Spain who sequenced and monitored the biological variants of COVID-19. From the audiovisual sector to the aerospace sector. Among the sectors that will benefit from this computing capacity will be those associated with the audiovisual industry. The Teide-HPC infrastructure was for example used to render scenes from the film ‘Tadeo Jones 2: The Secret of King Midas‘. It will also be the core of the project management of canary satellite constellation. Attracting talent. This facility also wants to become an element that reinforces the role of the Canary Islands as a technological hub. Having a supercomputing infrastructure like this wants to help attract technology companies that promote highly qualified young employment and therefore retain and attract new talent in this sector. Efficiency. Although the power of Teide HPC will greatly benefit from these new resources, advances in photolithography will mean that the new supercomputer will occupy only a quarter of the previous physical space. Its environmental impact will also be zero: the infrastructure will be located in ITER’s own facilities, and will be powered entirely with clean energy from its wind farms and photovoltaic plants. Image | POT | ITER In Xataka | The muscle of many supercomputers depended on GPUs: China is trying another way to surpass the best in the US

Greece wants to prevent its beaches from being suffocated by mass tourism. So you’ve declared war on sun loungers

by

Greece faces a dilemma. One well known in other countries that, like Italy, France, Holland, Japan either Spainhave become dream destinations for travelers from all over the world: their tourist attraction threatens to make them die of successsuffocated by overcrowding. To avoid this, the Greek Government has decided to shield around 250 beaches to maintain them as “virgin” sandbanks. In practice, this means that things as basic as renting umbrellas or sun loungers cannot be done there. “Virgin beaches”. If Greece is one of the most visited countries in the world and becomes the summer resort of millions of tourists It is basically because of four things: its Mediterranean climate, its historical heritage, its gastronomy and (above all) its landscapes and beaches. The Government knows this and that is why some time ago it prepared a list of “Virgin Beaches” either “unauthorized”coastal areas in which the authorities apply more restrictive control. Goodbye umbrellas, sun loungers and motorcycles. Among other thingsin these protected spaces it is not permitted to rent umbrellas and sun loungers, set up new bars or install music equipment and speakers. Nor organize events in which they participate more than ten people or use jet skis. In short: they are beaches open to the public and where you can lie down and sunbathe, but unlike the busiest areas you will hardly find commercial services or of course large tourist infrastructures. The idea is to preserve them in their natural state. The key figure: 251. Nothing new so far. What is striking is that the Greek Ministries of Economy and Environment have decided to expand the list of beaches to which this level of protection applies. Specifically, they have added 13 new sandy beaches, according to the local presswith which the ‘armored’ coves and beaches go from 238 to 251. The data is interesting in itself, but above all because the trend that draws: In recent years Athens has been expanding its protected coastal strip. From the 198 beaches in 2024 it went to 238 in 2025 and to 251 that will be monitored this summer. What is the objective? Don’t kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. Greece is full of idyllic beaches, but the mix of overtourism and uncontrolled commercial exploitation, with sandy areas covered by beach bars, umbrellas, sun loungers and rental jet skis, can make it less attractive. The Government also appeals to the need to protect the formations and ecosystems of the Greek coast. “The amendment seeks to effectively protect beaches that have a particular aesthetic, geomorphological or ecological value, as well as preserve the types of habitats and species of flora and fauna found there,” they argue. Earrings from the Natura Network. “Specifically, the coastal zones and beaches located in areas included in the National Catalog of Areas of the European Ecological Network Natura 2000 are expanded, in which use concessions are already prohibited, as well as any other action that could endanger their morphology and integrate with regard to their ecological functions,” duck the Government. To clear up doubts, the Greek authorities have published a list in which you can consult the beaches where businesses dedicated to renting umbrellas, sun loungers or motorcycles have been banished. These include sandy areas of Koufonisia, Chania or Lefkada. Some of the beaches added to the list have been in the center of controversy in recent years precisely because of tourism development plans that included new structures. The other data: 38 million. It is no coincidence that Greece decides to reinforce the care of its beaches right now. With the international tourism boom As a backdrop, in 2025 the country received about 37.98 million of foreign visitors (not including cruises), 5.6% more than the previous year. That rebound came accompanied by something else: an intense flow of billions of euros. Specifically, it is estimated that last year the income generated by the sector skyrocketed by 9.4% to reach 22.6 billion of euros, a figure that increases noticeably if you add the cruise passengers. These are important data due to their weight… and to understand the zeal with which Greece wants to take care of its sandy beaches, preventing part of its coastline from becoming overcrowded. If the tourism sector has learned anything in recent years, it is how easy it is to die of success. Without going any further, there are already travel guides that advise against visiting Mallorca, Barcelona or the Canary Islands because they consider them points hyper-crowded. Images | Nikos Zacharoulis (Unsplash) and Jorn Idzerda (Unsplash) In Xataka | The Balearic Islands are so desperate with tourism that they are already considering a measure that until now was taboo: a limit on flights

beaches destroyed and unusable now that the season begins

by

Now that the rains have lost relevance and everything is, little by little, returning to normal: Andalusia is beginning to realize that the winter storms have left much more than accumulated water: they have left a much more uncomfortable truth than the community is willing to accept. Because now Easter is coming and the “Andalusian paradise of sun and beach” has become a succession of destroyed promenades, damaged infrastructure and stretches where the beaches are completely missing. It’s something we knew and didn’t want to see. It is something that the storm is going to force us directly. What has happened? The first part of the story is simple and we have repeated it many times: trains of storms, persistent rains, water systems at the edge of their capacity. But also bad sea, wind and huge waves. As a consequence, while we were all 100% aware of overflows and reservoirs, several provinces have seen how the loss of sand and damage to coastal infrastructure became our daily bread. Huelva, we have already talked about ithas taken the worst part. And yes, the Andalusian Parliament has asked the central government (who has powers in the Coasts) for “stabilization, protection and restoration” works through emergency means. But even if they arrive, that will only be a temporary arrangement. The Andalusia that also lives off its coasts. Beyond the stereotypes, there are many Andalusias. And yes, one of them (or several) lives off its coasts. In 2025, without going any further, tourism broke his own record of visitors and income: we are talking about 37.9 million visitors and more than 30 billion. Now the calendar is tight and the problem has become evident, but the urgency cannot make us forget that it was there from the first moment. Because? As experts remember, the profile of the beaches “it constantly changes in response to changes in transverse sediment transport produced by marine dynamics, especially waves.” This “has never changed in all of history”, what has changed is that in recent decades it has begun to matter to us. How much we have changed. Well, because the emergence of mass tourism starting in the 1960s turned beaches into a very valuable resource and filled them with investments, infrastructure and capital. When the beaches began to change, we applied brute force: as we have explained on more than one occasion“the construction of breakwaters, the annual filling of beaches and the construction of coastal infrastructure to ‘secure’ the line have been the daily routine of our relationship with the beaches.” And as we have more and more investments in them, the problems become more critical and, for this reason, it is more expensive to insure these investments. But we can’t. It’s a race to nowhere; because, nowhere, can we answer the big questions left by the storms: will we be able to withdraw from the eroded front line in an orderly and fair manner? Will we be able to convert that tourism into something that maintains jobs, families and population? Will we be able to understand that behind these rains lies an entire country with a huge problem or will we continue as before? Image | Suomi In Xataka | Twenty years after the Prestige, Galicia faces another environmental disaster on its beaches: pellets

When a town found a dead whale on its beaches, it decided to dynamite it. 55 years later they still celebrate it

by

One of the most excessive and gory stories you have ever heard in your life is also one of the funniest, because for a change it does not involve the suffering of any living being, but rather a series of unfortunate decisions and systematic ignorance of the laws of physics. It is the story of the whale Oregon explosion, a crazy event that just turned 55 years old… and is still being celebrated. The problem. On November 12, 1970, engineers from the Oregon Highway Division, which is in charge of road traffic on a day-to-day basis, encountered an unusual dilemma on the beach in the small coastal town of Florence: getting rid of a dead eight-ton sperm whale that had been decomposing in the sun for three days. After consulting with the Navy about demolition techniques, the team decided to apply a solution as direct as it was disastrous to the corpse: half a ton of dynamite (twenty boxes), in the hope of pulverizing the cetacean. The seagulls would be in charge of cleaning up the remains. Good marines, bad advisors. The consultation turned out to be counterproductive. The marines advised on demolition with explosives, their specialty, but no one consulted marine biologists or coastal wildlife experts. Walter Umenhofer, a local businessman with military experience, warned Thornton that twenty boxes of dynamite was excessive: he recommended twenty individual cartridges or, if not, a much larger amount to completely pulverize organic tissue. His advice was ignored. Boom. The detonation, at 3:45 PM, caused a 30 meter high sand and grease apocalypsethrowing whale fragments in all directions. Blocks of tissue and muscle the size of coffee tables fell on spectators located at a safe distance of more than 400 meters from the explosion point. The screams of excitement from the hundred or so spectators turned into screams of horror as fragments of tissue fell from the sky. Some of the pieces of fat, almost a meter long, crushed the roof of a vehicle. The smell of burning flesh lingered for days and the seagulls never appeared. The decision of George Thornton, responsible for the action, lacked technical basis from the beginning. In one previous interviewadmitted: “I’m sure it will work. The only thing we’re not sure about is exactly how much dynamite we’ll need to break this… thing up, so the seagulls and crabs and other scavengers can clean it up.” Thornton decided to treat the cetacean like a rock on a road: half a ton of explosives strategically placed under the animal, in the hope that the force would propel the remains into the Pacific. What to do with a whale. Cetacean strandings have posed logistical dilemmas for coastal authorities for decades. Prior to the development of unified scientific protocols (that prioritize scientific necropsy on rapid elimination), methods for dealing with dead whales often relied on improvisation. The most common options They included burial on the beach, towing out to sea for sinking, or simply allowing the animal to decompose naturally. Today, disposal methods have evolved: countries such as South Africa, Iceland and Australia continue to use controlled explosives after towing cetaceans out to seabut the United States ended up abandoning this practice. When 41 sperm whales stranded near Florence in 1979, authorities They buried them without hesitation. Hunting In 1970, Oregon lacked specific guidelines for these cases. The Oregon Highway Division had jurisdiction over state beaches (an administrative quirk arising from the legal consideration of coastlines as part of the public highway system) but no expertise in marine biology. When the sperm whale arrived in Florence, George Thornton publicly admitted that he had been assigned to the case.”because his supervisor had gone hunting“. The closest precedent had been successful because of its modesty: two years earlier, in 1968, authorities in Long Beach, Washington, had managed a similar stranding through a conventional burial without incident. The unforgettable video. All was immortalized by KATU journalist Paul Linnman, who arrived on the scene initially frustrated by what he considered a menial assignment. Until he found out the amount of dynamite involved. With cameraman Doug Brazil documented the event on 16mm film with live magnetically recorded audio, a format that, unlike video, would retain its visual quality for decades. On. After the disaster, most of the sperm whale remained intact on the beach. Highway Division workers spent the afternoon manually burying the remains, including huge sections of the animal that were not moved from the explosion point. Thornton declared to Bacon that same afternoon that everything had gone “well…except that the explosion dug a hole in the sand beneath the whale,” directing the force upward rather than toward the ocean. decades laterThornton continued to defend the operation as a technical success distorted by hostile media coverage. It goes viral. For two decades, the incident remained a regional anecdote until comedian Dave Barry resurrected history in his Miami Herald column on May 20, 1990. Titled “The Far Side Comes to Life in Oregon,” in reference to the immortal series by gary larson. His description of the event introduced the American public to the concept of “epic fail” before the digital age popularized the term. The Oregon Department of Transportation received calls from angry people, convinced the incident had occurred recently. Which makes the exploding whale one of the first stories to go viral on the internet. Beyond the meme. The phenomenon transcended the purely digital. In 2015, Oregon indie musician Sufjan Stevens released the song ‘Exploding Whale‘, where it said “Embrace the epic failure of my exploiting whale”. Of course, the event appeared on ‘The Simpsons’, in the 2010 episode ‘The Squirt and the Whale’. In 2020, the Oregon Historical Society commissioned a 4K restoration of the original 16mm footage of the news story. The laughs. 55 years later, that fiasco in public management has been transformed into folklore and local heritage. In 2024, Florence declared November as “Exploding Whale Month”and the city celebrates the anniversary with a festival that culminates with the “Superlative … Read more

The future of beaches is more complicated than it seems

by

Storm Francis caused hundreds of problems in Andalusia. But if we have to choose just one (if only because of its iconic character), it would have a first and last name: Matalascañas. And the town in Almont suffered even a preventive eviction due to the risk of collapsing a building next to its promenade. However, no one expected what the storm left behind. More than four and a half kilometers of destruction. Specifically, 4.6 kilometers of walking completely destroyed and the collapse of entire stretches of beach; damage to at least three beach bars and many problems in the city’s treatment plant. The first estimates they talk about three million euros only for urgent interventions, although no one expects that the complete recovery of all the razed infrastructure will take less than ten. This is not the first time something like this has happened in Huelva, why is this important? Indeed, at this time last year we were talking about how it had disappeared El Portil beach in Punta Umbría. Huelva is one of the most sensitive points to coastal problems and its beaches are becoming areas in danger of extinction. What has happened in Matalascañas is not important because it is new, nor even because it is unusually large. It is important because Francis has hit one of the iconic places of Spanish tourism. It is, black on white, the confirmation that the problem is real and the solutions are difficult (and expensive). Stop the world. Because the truth is that it is something that we want to stop a process that has always been there. Nearby, at the mouth of the Piedras River, is the ‘arrow of the Rompido’ a spit of sand that extends on the left bank of the river and that grows up to 80 meters a year. That is to say, the people of Huelva have very close examples that beaches are almost ‘living beings’. As experts remember, the profile of the beaches “it constantly changes in response to changes in transverse sediment transport produced by marine dynamics, especially waves.” This “has never changed in all of history”, what has changed is that in recent decades it has begun to matter to us. Because? Well, because the emergence of mass tourism starting in the 1960s turned beaches into a very valuable resource and filled them with investments, infrastructure and capital. When the beaches began to change, we applied brute force: as we have explained on more than one occasion“the construction of breakwaters, the annual filling of beaches and the construction of coastal infrastructure to ‘secure’ the line have been the daily routine of our relationship with the beaches.” The problem is that we have more and more investments in them, the problems become more critical and, for this reason, it is more expensive to insure them. A race to nowhere (that we are not going to stop running). These days, experts they have spoken of losses of more than two meters per year and pointing to the role of the Juan Carlos I Jetty (13 km) in the alteration of currents and sedimentation dynamics. Furthermore, the evacuations show that the current infrastructure cannot “hold” and that the changes that Matalascañas needs are much deeper than what a “reconstruction” would entail. And yet, the neighbors’ demands are logical and, possibly, will be attended to by the administration (even more so in an election year in Andalusia). However, the question remains (and will continue) on the table: Will we be able to withdraw from the eroded front line in an orderly and fair manner? Will we be able to industrially reconvert that tourism into something that maintains jobs, families and population? Will we be able to understand that behind Matalascañas hides an entire country with an enormous problem? Image | Luis Daniel Carbia Head In Xataka | Twenty years after the Prestige, Galicia faces another environmental disaster on its beaches: pellets

Log In

Forgot password?

Forgot password?

Enter your account data and we will send you a link to reset your password.

Your password reset link appears to be invalid or expired.

Log in

Privacy Policy

Add to Collection

No Collections

Here you'll find all collections you've created before.