Experiencia de visitas masivas a cavidades en condiciones naturales: la Cueva del Agua de Iznalloz (Granada)

Abstract

The regime of visits in the Cueva del Agua is strictily restricted what allows to carry out an environmental control of the cave under natural conditions before the realization of any tourist activity inside. An underground laboratory has settled in the cave with continuous control of a set of environmental variables.

In the framework of this environmental control we have been carried out several controlled visits with the purpose to determine the affection that massive visits could have on the stability of the cave. The initial knowledge of the cave environment variations in natural conditions has been used to identify possible anthropic affections, so that they could be separated from the variations directly related to natural changes; especially the relative influence of the external climatology, the thermal modification caused by the visit and the later thermal recovery of the cave after the visit