With the white poplar

At the white poplar, slightly flooded when the Rhine level is high

The "Hagbau" sluice, dry when the Rhine level is low

Connection of the "hose" to the Schlute, flooded by the Rhine

There is a nature reserve near the white poplar in Mannheim .

Nature reserve

The nature reserve has an area of 8.6 hectares and is located in the southwest of Mannheim on the right bank of the Rhine . It belongs to the forest park with the Reißinsel , which is also under nature protection. The name goes back to an approx. 250 year old white poplar that was struck by lightning at the beginning of the 20th century and was so damaged in the harsh winter of 1928/29 that it did not recover and had to be felled in 1936. The nature reserve includes a regularly flooded alluvial forest with an Altrhein Schlute ("Hagbau") that flows parallel to the Rhine. In the lower softwood floodplain , wicker , purple and mantle willows grow in the bank area , which merges into a white willow forest with white and black poplars . In the higher hardwood floodplain there is a common oak - elm forest. The area is habitat for the water bat , the kingfisher and the common toad . To preserve the floodplain with the Schlute as a habitat for endangered animal and plant species, the nature reserve was designated in 1983.

In 2015 the “hose” ditch leading through the forest park, a narrow arm of the old Rhine that had been partially silted up for years, was renatured and connected to the Hagbau-Schlute at Rhine kilometer 418.6 in the south to improve the water morphology. This is linked to the expectation that, for the benefit of the local amphibian fauna, water will flow to the “Bellenkrappen” arm of the old Rhine on around 155 days a year and from there further into the Rhine.

literature

Thomas Breunig, Siegfried Demuth: Naturführer Mannheim , Verlag Regionalkultur 2000, ISBN 978-3-89735-132-5 , p. 87
District Office for Nature Conservation and Landscape Management Karlsruhe (Ed.): The nature reserves in the administrative district of Karlsruhe . Thorbecke, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-7995-5172-7 , pp. 389-391