Lake Bardawil ( ar, بحيرة البردويل ''Buḥayrat al-Bardawīl'' or سبخة البردويل ''Sabḵat al-Bardawīl''), is a large, very saline

lagoon A lagoon is a shallow body of water separated from a larger body of water by a narrow landform, such as reefs, barrier islands, barrier peninsulas, or isthmuses. Lagoons are commonly divided into '' coastal lagoons'' (or ''barrier lagoons ...

nearby the protected area of Zaranik (also known for diversities of insects and waterbirds) in

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a List of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country spanning the North Africa, northeast corner of Africa and Western Asia, southwest corner of Asia via a land bridg ...

on the north coast of the

Sinai Peninsula The Sinai Peninsula, or simply Sinai (now usually ) (, , cop, Ⲥⲓⲛⲁ), is a peninsula in Egypt, and the only part of the country located in Asia. It is between the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Red Sea to the south, and is a ...

. Lake Bardawil is about long, and wide (at its widest). It is considered to be one of the three major lakes of the Sinai Peninsula, along with the

Great Bitter Lake The Great Bitter Lake ( ar, البحيرة المرة الكبرى; transliterated: ''al-Buḥayrah al-Murra al-Kubrā'') is a large saltwater lake in Egypt that is part of the Suez Canal. Before the canal was built in 1869, the Great Bitter ...

and the Little Bitter Lake. It continues to decrease in size as sands move and is becoming more of a Playa or

Sabkha A sabkha ( ar, سبخة) is a coastal, supratidal mudflat or sandflat in which evaporite-saline minerals accumulate as the result of semiarid to arid climate. Sabkhas are gradational between land and intertidal zone within restricted coastal p ...

than a lake. Between Port Said and Rafah are three main

sabkha A sabkha ( ar, سبخة) is a coastal, supratidal mudflat or sandflat in which evaporite-saline minerals accumulate as the result of semiarid to arid climate. Sabkhas are gradational between land and intertidal zone within restricted coastal p ...

which extend from west to east: Sabkhat El Malaha ( Lake Fouad), Sabkhat Bardawil (Lake Bardawil) and Sabkhat El Sheikh Zawayed. It is shallow, reaching a depth of about 3 meters, and is separated from the

Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on ...

by a narrow

sandbar In oceanography, geomorphology, and geoscience, a shoal is a natural submerged ridge, bank, or bar that consists of, or is covered by, sand or other unconsolidated material and rises from the bed of a body of water to near the surface. ...

and often the waters of the sea find their way there, making it saline. It has International

Ramsar Convention The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands of International Importance Especially as Waterfowl Habitat is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of Ramsar sites (wetlands). It is also known as the Convention on Wetlands. It ...

protected

wetland A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (Anoxic waters, anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in t ...

s with a large population of little tern. 30% of the recorded species in the Mediterranean Coast of Sinai are in Lake Bardawil. Six threatened species of flora exist at Lake Bardawil, including Iris mariae. It has six habitats including "open water, wet salt marshes, saline sand flats and hummock (nebkas), stabilized sand dunes, interdune depressions, and mobile sand dunes." Other than bird diversity, the area is known for

sea turtle Sea turtles (superfamily Chelonioidea), sometimes called marine turtles, are reptiles of the order Testudines and of the suborder Cryptodira. The seven existing species of sea turtles are the flatback, green, hawksbill, leatherback, loggerhe ...

s and

bottlenose dolphin Bottlenose dolphins are aquatic mammals in the genus ''Tursiops.'' They are common, cosmopolitan members of the family Delphinidae, the family of oceanic dolphins. Molecular studies show the genus definitively contains two species: the comm ...

s although high mortality rate of sea turtles has been concerning. Within

IUCN The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN; officially International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources) is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natu ...

Red Data Book of 2006 are 6 threatened plant species which are found near the Lake, these include '' Astragalus camelorum'', '' Bellevalia salah-eidii'', '' Biorum oliveri'', '' Iris mariae'', '' Lobularia arabica'' and '' Salsola tetragona''. The first four are

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found else ...

species.M.A. Zahran and A.J. Willis Some students of the Hebrew Exodus out of Egypt think that this location is near the fourth station of the Exodus, called Pi-hahiroth, saying "it may have been just west of the Western tip of Lake Bardawil." It may be what

Herodotus Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria (Italy). He is known fo ...

described as the Serbonian Bog, between

Damietta Damietta ( arz, دمياط ' ; cop, ⲧⲁⲙⲓⲁϯ, Tamiati) is a port city and the capital of the Damietta Governorate in Egypt, a former bishopric and present multiple Catholic titular see. It is located at the Damietta branch, an easte ...

and Mount Casius, in his

Histories Histories or, in Latin, Historiae may refer to: * the plural of history * ''Histories'' (Herodotus), by Herodotus * ''The Histories'', by Timaeus * ''The Histories'' (Polybius), by Polybius * ''Histories'' by Gaius Sallustius Crispus (Sallust), ...

of 430BCE. The Bardawil lagoons are named after the Crusader king Baldwin I. Based in Jerusalem, Baldwin raided Egypt in order to secure his kingdom. He fell ill while fishing in the Nile. While being carried back to Jerusalem in 1118 CE, Baldwin died in El-Arish. During the Sinai and Palestine campaign of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, Allied soldiers of the

Canterbury Mounted Rifles The Canterbury Mounted Rifles Regiment was a mounted infantry regiment from New Zealand, raised for service during the First World War. It was assigned to the New Zealand Mounted Rifles Brigade, and formed part of the New Zealand Expeditionary ...

tried to cut a canal from the sea to the western end of Lake Bardawil in order to flood it and prevent forces of the

Central Powers The Central Powers, also known as the Central Empires,german: Mittelmächte; hu, Központi hatalmak; tr, İttifak Devletleri / ; bg, Централни сили, translit=Tsentralni sili was one of the two main coalitions that fought in W ...

attacking Romani from the north, but they were unsuccessful.

References

{{Egypt-geo-stub Lagoons of Asia Bardawil Ramsar sites in Egypt