Wedding dune
| Wedding dune | ||
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 Wedding dune |
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| height | 15 m | |
| location | Berlin ( Germany ) | |
| Coordinates | 52 ° 33 '41 " N , 13 ° 19' 48" E | |
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| Type | Inland dune | |
| rock | Drift sand | |
| Age of the rock | 12,000 years | |
The Wedding Dune is the only preserved inner-city Ice Age inland dune in Berlin. It is located on the grounds of the School Environment Center, Scharnweberstrasse 158/159 in the Berlin district of Wedding in the Mitte district .
Location and history
The dune and its surroundings are located on the Scharnweberstrasse 159 property in the Mitte district of Berlin. It partially includes the parcel 161/1 of the corridor 4 and has a size of about 4000 m². It is an offshoot of the former dune landscape of the Rehberge park and part of the Berlin glacial valley , which was formed around 18,000 years ago at the end of the last ice age, the Vistula glaciation . When the last glaciers retreated around 12,000 years ago, extensive vegetation-free zones with moraine debris and sand remained at the glacier edges . Because of the lack of tree growth and because the vegetation first had to establish itself, the fine grains of sand could easily be blown by the wind, so that dunes and loess could form as accumulation forms.
In the course of natural climate changes and human interventions through planting with deep-rooted trees to protect the pastures and settlements , vegetation covers were formed . From the 18th century systematic afforestation of the dune areas began, so that only individual inland dunes exist. Furthermore, dunes were used as sand pits for the extraction of building material or the fine sand was collected and sold as scouring sand . After various uses, both as a military training area and as a source of material, the Rehberge Volkspark was designed from 1926 to 1929 in the Rehberge area, to which the Wedding dune area is directly connected. The grounds of the gardening school were given to a housing association in 1929 in order to build further buildings for the Friedrich-Ebert-Siedlung there, but these were never realized. In 1950 the site was bought back and the gardening school was set up.
Already in 1976 the dune was registered as a large natural monument in the natural monument book of the Wedding district because of its uniqueness and natural historical importance, but was only protected on February 26, 2002 on the basis of §§ 18 and 21 of the Berlin Nature Conservation Act. The protection includes their soil structure, the typical soil type of the nutrient-poor and dry sand and the vegetation.
Maintenance measures
As a result of natural succession and due to planting and lack of care, a dense vegetation of blackberry , mahonia and snowberry bushes , oaks , Scots pine , robinia and beech formed on the dune within decades .
After the dune was registered as a natural monument of the Wedding district in 1976, an extensive protection, care and development concept was drawn up at the end of the 1980s. In February 2012, as a first step in the renaturation of the dune , the environmental agency in Mitte carried out extensive tree clearing work, during which 80 trees were felled. The tree species typical of the landscape of the inland dune, Scots pine and oak, have been preserved.
Since the spring of 2012, NABU-Berlin has taken on the renaturation, true to the defined care and development goals, and thanks to intensive care, the dune is increasingly regaining its original shape. A working group has been formed for this purpose. Regrowing ground elder , blackberry and robini saplings are removed in regular care operations . After the up to 40 cm thick layer of humus has been removed , a dune landscape with open sand areas is to be created, which offers a habitat for typical sand dune flora and fauna . For this purpose, the maintenance work should be continued even after a planned initial planting with dune-typical grasses.
