Hexbach valley
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Hexbach valley
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 Central area in Hexbachtal, February 2019 |
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| location | Mülheim an der Ruhr , North Rhine-Westphalia , Germany |
| surface | 4.2 hectares |
| Identifier | MH-005 |
| WDPA ID | 329431 |
| Geographical location | 51 ° 28 ' N , 6 ° 55' E |
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| Setup date | February 2005 |
| administration | Lower landscape authority of the respective city |
The Hexbachtal is a side valley of the Emscher and lies in the border area between Essen , Mülheim an der Ruhr and Oberhausen . Large parts of it are designated as a landscape conservation area and in areas near the stream in Mülheim an der Ruhr as a nature reserve . The eponymous Hexbach largely forms the border between Mülheim an der Ruhr- Dümpten and Essen- Bedingrade .
location and size
The Hexbachtal is about five kilometers long from the watershed between the Ruhr and Emscher (the course of the Aktienstraße ) to the mouth of the Emscher . Its open space of around 2.5 square kilometers is now used as a local recreation area in the north of Mülheim and the west of Essen. It is part of the so-called regional green corridor B. The valley is mainly used for agriculture. The creek area around 100 meters wide is forested. The Hexbach is in the northern part as Läppkes Mühlenbach, where it leaves the actual valley with the open spaces under the railway line of the Rhine-Herne Canal of the Emscher. Part of it was renatured by the Emschergenossenschaft as a pilot project .
Hexbach
The Hexbach has the water number 27729162, is 3.381 kilometers long and flows into it after about 1.5 kilometers as the crow flies just a few meters from the source of the Läppke Mühlenbach with at least 23 liters of water per second. The Hexbach has two smaller tributaries flowing in from the south. It rises between the streets Rötterhoverbaum and Heckelsberg, one of the tributaries on Bonnemannstraße and the other on Gänseweg. The Hexbach flows with the Läppkes Mühlenbach over the Emscher and the Rhine into the North Sea . It belongs to the river system of the Rhine.
Ecological importance
The ecological importance of the Hexbachtal was already the subject of the incorporation agreements concluded at the beginning of the 20th century, in which the protection of the Siepentäler, to which the Hexbachtal belongs, was laid down.
The aim of the settlement association Ruhrkohlengebiet (SVR), founded in 1920, was to prevent the individual cities from growing together and preventing urban sprawl. Indispensable green and arable land should be preserved. That is why open spaces worthy of protection, such as the Hexbachtal and the neighboring Winkhauser Tal, were defined as regional green corridors, the north-south course of which has been preserved between the cities in the Ruhr area to this day. From 1923 he also secured the regional green corridor B, which was legally anchored in the 1966 regional development plan, by buying up properties and keeping them free from any kind of development.
At the same time he was looking for ways to maintain the landscape in a natural way. To this end, he commissioned specialist expert reports. Forest scientist Wolfram Pflug presented a landscape-ecological model report for the Hexbach Valley in 1973. In 1978, this report was supplemented by the "Ecological Model Investigation Hexbachtal". These assessments of the Hexbach Valley as a landscape and nature worthy of protection remained an undisputed insight for the planning history of the Hexbach Valley in the following decades.
Nature reserve
The streams from their sources in a north-westerly direction to Dümptener Strasse are placed under nature protection. Added to this are the two-sided edge areas in a strip of five meters each and a larger area north of the Hexberg street. The designation as a nature reserve serves in particular to
- Preservation and restoration of the efficiency of the natural balance, especially with regard to the importance of the Bachtal as a biotope composite element of regional importance
- Preservation and development of biotopes worthy of protection and because of the importance of the area as a habitat for endangered or threatened animal and plant species and plant communities in NRW
- Preservation of the diversely structured landscape (stream valley, woody structures, wet meadows, bodies of water, springs) because of its importance for the landscape as well as because of the diversity, uniqueness and beauty of the landscape structures
- Preservation of the Bachtal as a landscape-defining, geomorphological feature.
From its headwaters to the south, the Hexbach cuts quickly into the landscape at the level of the Emscher lowlands, where it slows down its flow rate. In this way it was able to meander and form small branches. Typical floodplain forest with black alders , common ash trees and individual silver and broken willows formed here , which survive regular floods. In the floodplain you can find real valerian and real meadowsweet in large areas . In addition, there is ruderal vegetation with tall perennials. In the area of the two tributaries flowing in, there is the giant horsetail, which is classified as endangered in North Rhine-Westphalia . In a northerly direction the stream flows through fallow grassland that was once used as pasture for cattle; Agriculture was not possible. Economic use is no longer possible today on the moist soil, which is why this area was reforested with rapidly growing poplars after the Second World War , which contributed to the formation of a small alluvial forest. To the west on a hill that is not part of the nature reserve, but is considered a landscape protection area, fertile loess soil was deposited in the last Ice Age, which is used for agricultural purposes between Wennemannstrasse and Vosskuhle. In the further course, north of the Hexberg street, there is a fallow area that was once used as a horse pasture, but the floodplain and its vegetation was trampled through. Today the Hexbach can move freely here, so that an important biotope for animals and plants has formed. In the further course, the so-called Lower Hexbachtal north of the road Hexberg to Dümptener road, there are willows and head-ash, were among the earlier peasant to the typical cultural landscape and traditional weaving material and wood. They served as stakes for demarcation and secured the bank area. Today they form an element that shapes the landscape and are protected as such. In addition, they serve the biodiversity, because these head trees provide habitat for around 400 animal species, so that some only occur here.
history
The name "Läppkes Mühlenbach" can be traced back to a mill that was operated by the Essen Abbey in the 16th century. As a visible limitation, lobes blowing in the wind were attached on the occasion of a legal dispute. The name Hexbach is derived from Hexel, an earlier name for hornbeam .
Despite its ecological importance, the Hexbachtal in 1966 was to plan the Federal Highway 31 Emden - Bonn in the Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan added. The Rhenish section from Bottrop had been assigned the highest level of urgency. In October 1973 the first construction phase was to begin here. On the last day of the disclosure , however, a Mülheim citizens' initiative that had formed for this purpose submitted several hundred signatures as part of the concerns and suggestions, initially with the aim of relocating the route from the ecologically sensitive valley floor to the slope to the west . Since the Ruhrsiedlungsverband had argued similarly, the start of construction was postponed. The later goal of the citizens' initiatives, which then formed along the route and joined together to form the A 31 action group , was to prevent construction altogether.
The A 31 action group's involvement in the official planning process and in the formation of public opinion bore fruit, but the political pressure for the construction of the trunk road remained, especially since communal, cross-party fundamental decisions for the motorway had been made in the Ruhr area in the early planning phase. The proponents cited their validity. Since the federal government did not want to push through the construction against the will of the politically influential central Ruhr area affected by the motorway project, it was important, from the point of view of the environmentalists, that Bottrop, Oberhausen, Mülheim and Essen also had a negative attitude towards motorway planning at the political level to reach. The environmentalists were helped by the first results of the reports requested by their scientific advisory board, which the Federal Minister of Transport, the Minister of Economics, SMEs and Transport of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia and the Rhineland Regional Council had awarded for the planning process for the A 31 . The results of the environmental study, which became known prematurely, as part of the overall report, increased the pressure on the political parties, whose grassroots organizations now also demanded the task of A 31 planning. In this way, there was a political rethinking in the towns bordering the Ruhr area, which led the council bodies to decisions against the A 31. It was finally deleted from the Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan in 1980.
Even during the planning of the A 31 in 1978, the nature of the Hexbach valley was threatened by the construction of a correctional facility, for which 20 hectares of land would have had to be sacrificed. This was followed by other major planning projects that impaired nature: RWE transformer station (1987), 18-hole golf course (1989), package distribution center (1991), refugee home for 600 people (1992), extensive canal construction work in the center of the alluvial forest (2000). The public, sensitized for environmental protection, succeeded in showing alternatives for these projects, so that the landscape and nature were spared.
In December 2015, the planning from 1992 was resumed against the background of increasing numbers of refugees. According to the planning department in Essen, the refugee home was to be built in "simple but permanent accommodation", which would later form the basis for "orderly residential development". The factual public resistance presented by a citizens' initiative as well as an incorrect numerical forecast calculation by the city of Essen led to the project being temporarily canceled.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ State Office for Nature, Environment and Consumer Protection North Rhine-Westphalia: Waters Directory NRW (Excel; 1.1 MB); accessed on March 1, 2019
- ↑ Incorporation contracts between the city of Essen and the municipalities of Borbeck , Altenessen , Bredeney , Haarzopf with subsidiary contracts , Essen 1915, p. 21
- ^ Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of March 6, 1973
- ↑ Herbert Ant et al., Ecological Model Investigation Hexbachtal . Published by the Ruhr coal district settlement association, Essen 1978
- ↑ a b NSG Hexbachtal on the homepage of the city of Mülheim an der Ruhr ; accessed on March 1, 2019
- ↑ protectedplanet.net NSG Hexbachtal ; accessed on March 1, 2019
- ↑ Information board on site of the Office for Environmental Protection, City of Mülheim an der Ruhr
- ↑ Wolfgang Sykorra : From the "Talmulden" to the regional green corridor B , in: Essener contributions. Contributions to the history of the city and monastery of Essen 128 (2015), pp. 261–296
- ↑ Wolfgang Sykorra: Again and again: The fairy tale of the lack of alternatives . The Hexbachtal as reflected in its conflicting goals, in: Borbecker Nachrichten of August 12, 2016
- ↑ Neue Ruhr Zeitung of December 8, 2015
- ^ Neue Ruhr Zeitung of September 10, 2016