Marjal de Peñíscola

The Marjal de Peñíscola is a coastal wetland of about 105 hectares located in Peñíscola, in the province of Castellón, in the Valencian Community. It is listed as a site, included in the Valencian Catalogue of Wetlands and in the Natura 2000 Network as a Site of Community Importance. It is a coastal wetland area where natural marshland environments predominate, with the presence of agricultural areas and surrounded by residential uses. From a landscape and ecological point of view, the area combines lagoons, saline grasslands, halophilic scrubland, shallow waters and wet meadows, fed by subway springs or ullals. This water dynamic keeps different sectors flooded for much of the year and explains the diversity of marsh and salt marsh vegetation that characterizes the area. The urban pressure of the environment has not prevented it from preserving its natural features to a large extent. Its main interest for the visit is in the observation of a very well preserved Mediterranean wetland next to the tourist center of Peñíscola. Here the populations of samaruc and fartet, endemic and endangered fish, stand out, as well as fauna linked to the aquatic environment and the resting and feeding areas of birds. It also attracts by the contrast between the tranquility of the marsh and the immediate urban and coastal landscape. The Peñíscola Marsh is environmentally relevant because of its regional and European protection and because it is home to one of the best known nuclei of samaruc. Its value is not only natural, but also territorial, because it represents one of the few coastal wetlands that have survived in the environment of the north coast of Castellón.