It was once a malarial swamp and home to the anopheles mosquito,[4] resulting in the area being uninhabited for many centuries, and it is still comparatively undeveloped.

Inland there are orchards, olive groves and farmland, while between the lake and the sea lie sand dunes.

The lake is jointly owned by the twelve principal villages of north-eastern Corfu and leased for fish farming, producing flathead grey mullet, sea bass and eel.

[5] The adjacent dunes are home to the sand lily (pancratium maritimum) and the agile frog (rana dalmatina).

[7] Durrell wrote that:[8]it was a mile long, an elongated sheet of shallow water surrounded by a thick mane of cane and reed, and separated from the sea at one end by a wide, gently curving dune of white sand… It was the only place on the island where those sand lilies grew, strange misshapen bulbs buried in the sand, that once a year sent up thick green leaves and white flowers above the surface, so that the dune became a glacier of flowers.