UNDEVELOPED BEACHES UNDER THREAT TO OVERCROWDING

UNDEVELOPED beaches situated outside built-up areas are the ones which bathers, both tourist and resident, flock to in summer, according to a study by geographers Llorenç Mas and Macia Blazquez of the Balearic University's Department of Terrestrial Science, who analysed the figures for 18 beaches in a study. The beach with the most number of users per day is the Playa de Alcudia with 33'786 bathers recorded in just one day, although this was a public holiday. On working days the maximum figure was less than half, 15'245 bathers. S'Arenal-Playa de Palma is more stable, although it doesn't reach the maximum of Alcudia. On public holidays it normally has around 33'157 bathers, while on working days the figure for S'Arenal is only a little lower at 26'120 which is vastly superior to the figure for Alcudia. The figures for these two beaches were much higher than the rest that Mas and Blazquez studied.
Neverthless, when the two geographers related the number of users to the area of sand available on each beach they found that S'Arenal and the Playa de Alcudia aren't the most crowded considering the amount of square metres of beach available per bather. They found that Majorca's most crowded beach is the one at Cala Agulla, in the district of Capdepera. The maximum number of people visiting the beach at Cala Agulla doesn't rise above 7'000 but the density, on public holidays as well as working days, tends to stay at 7 square metres of sand per person, whereas at S'Arenal there are 16 square metres of beach per person on public holidays and 21 on working days while on the Playa de Alcudia the figures are 13 and 21 respectively. It should be pointed out that the beaches at S'Arenal and Alcudia are in over-crowded tourist areas whereas the beach at Cala Agulla is in a natural area of special interest. In the whole of Majorca, there are other worrying cases of crowding on undeveloped beaches. Cala Mesquida, also in the Capdepera district and also in a special interest area, has 10 square metres of sand per person on public holidays and 8.72 on working days, levels which are very near to those of Cala Agulla. The worst case of over-crowding in the Balearics is Benirras, in Eivissa, with just 5 square metres of sand per person. It is supposed to be undeveloped, but it is under threat from urban projects. On the other hand, the least crowded beach in the Balearics is sa Canova D'Arta, although it has built-up areas nearby, with 44 square metres of beach per person on public holidays and 161 on working days.