Less Info

Colorful salt ponds create an artist’s palette on the mudflats near the mouth of the Sine-Saloum River delta on the Atlantic coast of Senegal. The two rivers flow along the southern edge of the Sahel region, where devastating and increasingly frequent droughts since the 1970s have dramatically reduced the amount of water reaching the sea, causing what geologists call a “reverse delta,” in which the ocean moves inland. The increasing salinity of the land and river has made it impossible for local farmers to raise crops, livestock, or fish. Instead, the local Serer people have used the changing landscape to their advantage, carving out shallow ponds to capture seawater during seasonal high tides, which then evaporates, leaving sea salt behind. The ponds change color depending on various algae and microbes that thrive at different salinity levels. Producing salt in this ancient way requires a lot of manual labor in the broiling sun of Senegal, much of it done by entire families, and even children. Such small-scale harvesters account for about a third of the 500,000 tons of salt produced in Senegal each year.

Filename
STNMTZ_20180514_8765.TIF
Copyright
©2018 George Steinmetz
Image Size
15000x9987 / 59.0MB
www.GeorgeSteinmetz.com
Contained in galleries
Colorful salt ponds create an artist’s palette on the mudflats near the mouth of the Sine-Saloum River delta on the Atlantic coast of Senegal. The two rivers flow along the southern edge of the Sahel region, where devastating and increasingly frequent droughts since the 1970s have dramatically reduced the amount of water reaching the sea, causing what geologists call a “reverse delta,” in which the ocean moves inland. The increasing salinity of the land and river has made it impossible for local farmers to raise crops, livestock, or fish. Instead, the local Serer people have used the changing landscape to their advantage, carving out shallow ponds to capture seawater during seasonal high tides, which then evaporates, leaving sea salt behind. The ponds change color depending on various algae and microbes that thrive at different salinity levels. Producing salt in this ancient way requires a lot of manual labor in the broiling sun of Senegal, much of it done by entire families, and even children. Such small-scale harvesters account for about a third of the 500,000 tons of salt produced in Senegal each year.

All images ©George Steinmetz. Please contact us for usage.