Plastic roofs expanding

Around the town of El Ejido, roughly 30 kilometres south-west of the city of Almeria, a sea of white plastic greenhouses is visible. In the past, this region of south-eastern Spain was dry and undisturbed, but since the 1980s it has been home to the highest concentration of greenhouses in the world, with 26 000 hectares. The plantations extend into the valleys in the nearby Alpujarra Mountains, and some small towns in the region are completely surrounded by white farms. Under the plastic roofs, vegetables are cultivated using hydroponics, where the crops grow in a nutritional solution instead of soil. The plants can be placed close together in pumice or plastic pipes where water and nutrients circulate. The entire cultivation system is closed, which uses less water than cultivation in soil and means that no fertiliser or pesticides leach into the environment. Millions of tons of vegetables are exported to other European countries and worldwide. Photograph from 2008.

Photo: NASA/GSFC/METI/ERSDAC/JAROS, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team

Published: 2014