WHAT ARE THE ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS OF HAVING THE GIWW IN THE LAGUNA MADRE?
The climate and physical nature of the Laguna Madre contributed to a biologically highly stressful environment. The system is dominated by a hot, dry, windy climate with very little circulation and freshwater inflow. The Laguna Madre is also divided into two sections by a land bridge, also called the Mud Flats, just below Baffin Bay that further exacerbates the extreme conditions. Before 1949, when the GIWW was completed across the land bridge, both lagoons regularly experienced hypersaline conditions of 60 to 120 parts per thousand (ppt) of salt. For comparison, normal ocean salinity is around 32 to 35ppt. Upon completion of the GIWW, salinity, although still variable, dropped to between 25 ppt and 46 ppt, with occasional values as high as 60 ppt.