The Salina di Sant’Antioco extends over a pericoastal strip about 20 km long, with a maximum depth of about 3 km. Constructed in the early 1960s by means of works to regulate and connect existing coastal lagoons, it went into production at the end of the same decade. The useful area covered by the waters, which varies seasonally, is about 1,500 hectares, divided, into evaporating (1,300 hectares) and saline (200 hectares). The productive function performed by the evaporating areas consists mainly in bringing seawater to saturation with respect to sodium chloride, providing for the increase from the characteristic density of seawater, 3.5° Baumè (Bè), to that of saturation, which is reached at a density of 25.7° Bè at a temperature of 15°C.The entire journey is accomplished by the water in 40-60 days depending on weather conditions. The remaining part of the sperficie covered by the water constitutes the saline zone, in which sodium chloride precipitation occurs. This zone is continuously fed during the saliferous campaign with the saturated water prepared in the evaporating zone, which here reaches densities close to 30° Bè. The continuous-cycle water movement is achieved by exploiting for most of the surface area the natural gradient of the terrain; where this is not possible 6 hydro-lift stations located in different areas of the Salina provide it. The most favorable period for production is from May to September: pumping operations begin when evaporation takes a clear upper hand over rainfall. During the remainder of the year, production activity is aimed at preserving the characteristics of the water present in the different evaporating zones. The characteristics of these very important sites, constitute an extraordinary habitat especially for the stopover and wintering of waders, spoonbills, cranes, great white egrets and small groups of geese, for habitual breeding birds such as the black-winged stilt, avocet, Kentish plover, little tern, the tern tern, sea partridge, roseate and coral gulls, ducks of various species in addition to the famous pink flamingo, which, now consistently above a thousand individuals, represents in the salt marsh itself one of the most important European populations of this species.
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