Ain Elshakika Wetland is a
Ramsar Ramsar may refer to:
* Places so named:
** Ramsar, Mazandaran, city in Iran
** Ramsar, Rajasthan, village in India
* Eponyms of the Iranian city:
** Ramsar Convention concerning wetlands, signed in Ramsar, Iran
** Ramsar site, wetland listed in a ...
-protected wetland of
Libya within the
El Kouf National Park
El Kouf National Park, established in 1975, is one of the seven national parks of Libya. El Kouf is located along Libya's northeastern Mediterranean coastline and has both marine and terrestrial biodiversity. Libya also has five other reserves, t ...
. The wetland reserve was established in 2000, and covers an area of .
The site consists of a hypersaline coastal
sebkha
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 ...
with limestone rock formations to the south, dunes and mudflats with extensive shrubs from west to east.
Vegetation on the inland side consists of a fringe of tamarix, mixed with freshwater-loving plants such as juncus.
The site connects in two points to the sea: in winter at high tide, seawater reaches the sebkha and raises the water level to about one meter, though freshwater springs locally decrease the salinity to some degree. In summer, the sebkha's water level is below sea level, but never fully dries. The site is an important wetland for migratory and resident waterbirds.
It has national importance for the redshank and potential importance for
curlew,
dunlin
The dunlin (''Calidris alpina'') is a small wader, formerly sometimes separated with the other "stints" in the genus ''Erolia''. The English name is a dialect form of "dunling", first recorded in 1531–1532. It derives from ''dun'', "dull brown ...
(''Calidris alpina'') and
slender-billed gulls (''Chroicocephalus genei'').
References
Protected areas of Libya
Protected areas established in 2000
Ramsar sites in Libya
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