MEPA schedules Wied il-Balluta

The natural site encompasses an area of over 46,000m². It has been designated with different levels of protection and includes a buffer zone to protect the overall integrity of the valley.

While it represents a typical "Maltese wied", the Planning Authority says it holds some distinctive features in that it is "shorter, steeper, and wider" than most other valleys in Malta.

Richard Lia, Heritage Planning Officer at MEPA said that "although today urbanisation girdles the entire valley, the steep banks and bed of this valley still supports rich and dense maquis vegetation, whereas a substantial part of its northern valley-side is characterised by exposed karstic terrain with associated floral assemblages."

Lia also pointed out that "this green lung, in this densely-built area, has various components that contribute to the landscape setting of this valley-its geomorphology, a mixture of natural communities, archaeophytes as well as pockets of agricultural land that are today still farmed in the traditional way."

The entire protected valley is composed of Globigerina Limestone while parts of the southern valley-side consists of a ravine with a sharp drop in site levels, reminiscent of a small-scale solution subsidence structure.

Apart from a predominance of carob and olive trees, the valley-bed also supports bay laurels (is-siġar tar-rand) whereas the upper valley side, sustains a population of rosemary (il-klin) and pyramidal orchids (l-orkidi piramidali), among other floral species.

At Wied il-Balluta cultivated fields are concentrated along the lower reaches of the valley with a distinctively sharp boundary between arable land and the maquis community further upstream.

Along the northern valley-side the boundaries between cultivated land and maquis vegetation are significantly more diffuse.