History of water management in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
This article aims to provide an overview of the history of water management in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, considering Mecklenburg and the western part of Pomerania before 1945 . General basics are presented under History of Water Use and in the Water Management article .
Formation of the water system of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania
During the last ice age, the so-called Vistula Ice Age, the Scandinavian glaciers penetrated across the Baltic Sea to Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. However, due to the rise in the relief towards the south, the meltwater from the glaciers could not flow away to the south, but instead flowed parallel to the respective ice edge towards the north-west towards the North Sea. As a result, glacial valleys such as the Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania border valley or the Elbe glacial valley emerged. It is possible that today's Strelasund is also a former glacial valley. Also due to the prevailing slope of the terrain, the Haffstausee formed in the area of today's Ueckermünder Heide , the water of which did not flow over the glacial valleys until the end of the Ice Age. After the ice had receded, the water was able to flow back north to the Baltic Sea, which is why today's rivers only follow the glacial valleys in sections and then often flow north into the next glacial valley.
In the area of moraines often dischargeless sinks made out of which in the following centuries Moore emerged.
Early days
One can mostly only speculate about hydraulic engineering measures in the early period, since hardly any records were made about them. The swampy lowlands were used early on by hunters and gatherers due to their good protection from enemies, as the earthworks of the funnel cup culture in the Lewitz show. In Central Europe, peat has been mined for smelting and as building material since the Bronze Age , and lawn iron ore since the Iron Age . This may also have happened in what is now Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
middle Ages
In Slavic times, settlements and castles were often built on the banks of lakes or in wetlands, and moats and walls were often built to defend them. Examples of this are the Rethra shrine or Werle Castle . A Slavic castle rebuilt as an open-air museum is located near Groß Raden .
The large rivers and wetlands were also important for the route of the trade routes , as there were only a few places where they could be safely crossed. These were often specially protected against enemy attacks. With the "via regia" leading through what is now Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania from the mouth of the Elbe to Stettin, the exact course could only be partially clarified through these points, such as the Recknitz crossing at Laage . In some battles during this period, such as the Battle of the Raxa , the frequent impassability of the waters played an important role.
After the defeat of the Slavs, German settlers settled the country, and from around 1200 also the wetlands such as the Lake District. In the course of settlement in the 12th and 13th centuries, many mills with the associated mill weirs and ditches were created, creating mill ponds in many places , for example the Friedlander or the Wismar mill pond . These are the first verifiable major hydraulic engineering works in present-day Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. This also led to changes in the water level of many larger lakes, such as the raising of the lake level of the Müritz by about two meters. The damming often led to accelerated bog formation.
Also in the 12th or 13th century, immigrant Dutch farmers began to build the first dikes along the Elbe to protect against flooding. For centuries, the dyke was built in an uncoordinated manner, with the landowner or later the local dike companies building the dike according to their own ideas. It was only after 1945 that the individual dikes were combined to form a closed system of dikes.
To defend the up-and-coming Hanseatic cities, fortifications were built from around 1300, some of which also included artificial trenches , such as the Lübeck Landgraben or the trenches of the Rostock city fortifications . The first drainage ditches in the Peene and Recknitz valleys were also built in the Middle Ages. The first forerunners of a water supply emerged in Rostock from 1448 onwards : The brewers, who joined together to form a society, channeled surface water from the ponds south of Rostock into the city using ditches and wooden pipes. The mining of peat also only got a certain importance in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania in the Middle Ages, but it remained with isolated mining from the 16th century.
The first large canal in Mecklenburg, the Elde Canal , was built from 1568. It became necessary after Lübeck had been connected to the Elbe via the Stecknitz Canal in 1398 . Because of this better transport route than the land route, Wismar fell behind in the important salt trade from Lüneburg to Lübeck. Because of disputes with Brandenburg over a short section of the Elde in Brandenburg, the construction of the waterway did not begin until about 200 years later, with the Brandenburg section being bypassed by a canal in Mecklenburg near Dömitz. In 1572 the Elde Canal with six wooden sluices and one stone sluice was completed near Dömitz. The ships were mainly moved by towing .
As early as 1531, the construction of the first part of a planned connection between Lake Schwerin and the Bay of Wismar began with the canal from Hohen Viecheln on Lake Schwerin to Lake Losten . The remaining part of the canal, the Wallensteingraben , was never permanently completed due to lack of funds.
Early modern age
In the 18th century, large parts of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, including the ditches and watercourses, were systematically mapped for the first time. For the then Swedish part of the country that emerged from 1,692 to 1,709 Swedish matrikel responsible for the Mecklenburg part in the years 1779 to 1794 by Carl Friedrich von Wiebeking drawn and Count of Schmettau issued cards .
During this time the Elde Canal and the Stör waterway leading to Schwerin were expanded. New canals were also created, such as the Torfflößerkanal, the predecessor of today's Chamber Canal ; or the Ludwigsluster Canal , which was supposed to bring in water to run the water features in the park of the Ludwigsluster Palace .
In the Lewitz and Recknitz valleys , lawn iron ore was mined for iron production and as a building material from the 16th century. Increased amelioration in the wetlands also began around this time: in the Lewitz from the 16th century, in many other areas such as the Friedländer Großer Wiese and the Recknitz Valley around two centuries later. However, these first attempts at drainage were unplanned and incoherent.
After the city of Wismar was captured by the Danes in 1675 because they cut the water pipes leading into the city, a fortified tower was converted into the old water tower in 1685, making it probably the oldest water tower in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. During the siege of Wismar (1715) the tower was also used as a water tower.
The first preserved level marks in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania come from the storm flood in 1625 and are located at the Mönchentor in Rostock , among other places . In Lübeck stood the now demolished Beckergrubenturm , to which new high water marks were attached with every storm surge since 1625 .
Industrialization until World War I
In the course of industrialization , the transport network also had to be expanded in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, which at the time meant above all the expansion and construction of canals. The Elde Canal was expanded again by the construction of the Friedrich-Franz Canal in the Lewitz, recesses and lock renewals until 1873 and through the expansion of the connections between the lakes to the Müritz-Elde waterway. Between 1832 and 1837, the construction of the Bolter Canal created a navigable connection between the Müritz and Berlin.
The plan to build a connection between Rostock and the Lake District via the Warnow and the Nebel , which has been discussed continuously since 1825, was only implemented between Bützow and Güstrow ( Bützow-Güstrow Canal ) due to lack of funds . A connection between Rostock and Ribnitz and thus to Peene and Oder was also discussed for the first time in 1862. This project would have been much cheaper, but it was not carried out. Many of the Mecklenburg canals such as the Dahmer Canal were built during the 19th century. The construction of canals often led to changes in the water level of neighboring lakes. For example, the water level of the Müritz fell by around two meters as the canal was built.
During the 17th century, some dikes were built on the coast to protect against floods in the Baltic Sea ; so was the place Zingst on the former island of Zingst, after starting in 1800 with the dunes care and dike construction, complete dikes 1,873th The first German groynes on the Baltic Sea were built on Rügen as early as 1848 .
The monitoring of water levels on the German Baltic Sea coast began relatively late; in Wismar in 1848, in Warnemünde in 1855. Twenty years later, the largest recorded storm surge took place on the German Baltic Sea coast, the so-called Baltic storm flood , which among other things led to the silting up of the Prerower Strom , which was finally filled in two years later. Many dykes were built or reinforced after the storm floods.
From 1876 to the beginning of the 20th century, a new map of the country took place, the Tk25 measuring table.
In the course of the increasing demand for fuel and the increasing clearing of the forests, peat mining began on a large scale from 1750. The large peat cuttings arose in the Peene Valley and in many other moors, such as the Göldenitzer Moor or on the north shore of the Plauer See , which increasingly drained the moors. With the connection of large areas to the railway network, imported coal became increasingly important. For small farmers and poorer people, the cheaper peat remained the preferred heating material. In addition to the areas drained for peat extraction, many other areas were drained for agricultural purposes, including part of the Lewitz by building the Brenz Canal and deepening the Elde and Stör, as well as part of the Friedlander Große Wiese using a narrow-gauge railway . In the Recknitz valley , until the beginning of the 18th century, only a narrow strip of land on the banks of the Recknitz was cultivated as a meadow, but for many years it did not bring any income because of the wetness. From around 1750, the planned amelioration began there, initially with the help of ditches and intensive peat extraction. Even then, there were initial efforts to straighten part of the Recknitz in order to improve navigability. For the removal of peat and the salt from the Bad Sülzer Saline the barge canal was to Trebel built. This led to increasing drainage and thus to the temporary drying out of the moors in the Recknitz lowlands. In other areas, various drainage-free depressions were often connected to one another by ditches or pipelines and ultimately to a river, i.e. connected to the receiving water and thus drained. Around 1900, remote and low-yield areas, especially in the Lewitz, were often no longer cultivated. Carp ponds were then created on these areas, some of which are still in use today and are often protected .
There were also important innovations in the areas of drinking water supply and wastewater disposal during this period: In 1867, the first waterworks in Rostock, initially with around 25 km of pipe network, went into operation, followed in 1903 by the first water tower , and in 1913 by the first mechanical wastewater treatment plant with associated wastewater pipes. Before that, the untreated water was channeled into the Unterwarnow. Public water supplies began in the late 19th century in other cities in what is now Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, such as in Güstrow.
Weimar Republic and Third Reich
In the 1920s, due to the increasing demand for electricity and the lack of coal deposits, the first hydropower plants were built, for example in Neustadt-Glewe , the largest hydropower plant in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania on the Mildenitz near Zülow and at the locks of the Müritz-Elde waterway after the renewed expansion of the Elde. Since there was only a small amount of usable hydropower in Güstrow, the mill owners there were forced to convert their systems into hydropower plants.
During the Weimar Republic, the amelioration of the wetlands continued steadily. In the Peene Valley, clay pipes were used for the main drainage ditches and wind-driven pumping stations for the drainage of newly created polders in the early 1930s . The first flood protection dikes on the Peene were also created at this time. During the National Socialist era, additional areas were drained as part of the Reich Labor Service . A ring trench was built around the Zerninsee in 1936, which should make the area of the lake usable for grazing. Drainage and road construction work also took place in Friedland's Großer Wiese with the help of RAD members. This work was intended to improve the supply of food to the population in times of war and was therefore related to the self-sufficiency efforts of the Third Reich .
To improve the transport route towards Berlin, the Mirower Canal was built in 1935/36 as a new connection between Müritz and Havel. It replaced the old connection via the Bolter Canal and the Alte Fahrt. During the war, the system of drainage ditches was neglected, which led to flooding and partial rewetting, for example in the Lewitz in autumn 1946.
GDR time
During the GDR era, drainage efforts reached their peak. The GDR also strived for the greatest possible self-sufficiency and therefore tried to make use of every area where this was possible and to increase its yield as much as possible. This happened as part of the so-called complex improvement. It usually comprised the system fewer but deeper main drainage ditches into which the water was directed through underground drainages . Due to the lower number of above-ground trenches, the areas could be more easily cultivated with machines. The creation of pumping stations and the associated polders was often one of the measures taken. These not only included the area of water management, road construction work and the clearing of woody trees also often took place. The plowing of the grassland after the drainage work, new sowing and fertilization were also part of the complex improvement . In the process, rivers such as the Recknitz, which were shortened from originally 122 km to 69 km, became partly non-navigable; the Warnow or the Sude straightened. Large areas of drainage were possible, especially in flat regions such as the Lewitz or Friedländer Große Wiese, and were therefore operated intensively; in terminal moraine areas only relatively little additional areas were created, but there, too, a lot of straightening was carried out and other damp areas were drained. The straightening also served to speed up the drainage of the water from low areas, i.e. to improve the connection to the receiving water , so that fewer areas were flooded when there was heavy rainfall. The former meanders of the rivers can still be clearly seen from the air, for example on the Nebel above Güstrow. In order to be able to regulate the water level of the rivers even better, a total of nine weirs were built in the Recknitz, for example. The work was often carried out as youth objects , for example in the Lewitz. There was an FDJ deployment camp there, in which around 80 young people were deployed for four weeks from 1960. In the summer, additional young people, for example from the pedagogical university in Güstrow, were deployed. In the course of the amelioration, the first groundwater measuring points were set up in the Lewitz in order to be able to take full advantage of the now possible controlled changes in the groundwater level.
Another hydraulic engineering measure that was linked to the intensification of agriculture was the construction of three dams to irrigate fields in the 1970s and early 1980s: the Brohm dam , the Farpen dam and the Faulmühle reservoir .
As a result of the complex improvement, a large part of the moors was drained, as the groundwater level , on which most moors in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania depend, fell by more than a meter in some cases. For example, in the Serrahn part of the Müritz National Park, only 70 of the former 470 hectares of moorland are not drained. Of course, there was also an increase in crop yields: in Lewitz, for example, they rose by around two and a half times.
Paradoxically, large parts of the Lewitz were already under protection before the amelioration. The nature conservation interests, however, had to submit to the agricultural interests, so that the nature reserve was quickly converted into a landscape protection area that allowed intensive agriculture. On the private side, however, there were also isolated initiatives to protect the moors in the GDR: For example, the Kieshofer Moor , which had previously been a nature reserve, was partially renatured by hand from 1963, even if the work after 1990 with the use of machines was essential went faster.
Work was again carried out on a navigable connection between the Baltic Sea and the Lake District and thus the Elbe and the Peene. Various plans emerged, such as the construction of a canal from the Warnow into the Elde or from the Warnow over the Nebel and Krakower See to the Plauer See , for which a dam was to be built in the Nebel breakthrough valley. Ultimately, only the construction of a connection between the Rostock seaport and the Peene was started, which should lead over the Recknitz and the Trebel, the so-called coastal canal . However, the construction was soon abandoned.
The sewage treatment plants were expanded again and again according to the growing population. The first biological wastewater treatment plants were built above drinking water extraction points , for example in Güstrow due to drinking water extraction from the Warnow near Rostock.
Since 1990
After the fall of the Wall there was an official change in the objectives of water management in the area of the former GDR. Now the focus was not only on the fastest possible water drainage, but also on the development and maintenance of near-natural flowing waters. Even during the political upheaval, 14 large protected areas were set up as part of the national park program, six of which are wholly or partly in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, such as the Müritz National Park or the Southeast Rügen Biosphere Reserve . Since then, renaturation work has been carried out in wetlands and moors, for example in the Lewitz or in the Grenztalmoor . The straightening of the rivers has also been partially reversed, for example on the Recknitz or the middle Trebel.
In addition to the renaturation of stretches of water, a further goal was to restore the ecological continuity of the flowing water by dismantling or converting weirs , which was carried out entirely on the Randow or the Uecker, for example. Many of these projects were funded by the EU as EU LIFE projects .
In this context , the major nature conservation projects in the Bodden landscape, the Peene Valley and the Schaalsee area should also be mentioned . In 2000 the European Union published the so-called Water Framework Directive , which among other things obliges the member states to achieve a good status of their waters by 2015 if possible. The “good status” is determined by a number of parameters that affect the structure, ecology and chemical status of the water and are based on naturally occurring water. To implement the guideline, preliminary management planning was carried out and a number of measures were planned and in some cases already carried out, such as the connection of oxbow lakes and the renaturation of smaller bodies of water. Various measures to improve the water quality were also carried out on lakes, such as desludging or deep water aeration, which was used on the Schmalen Luzin from 1996, for example . The main goal is usually to reduce the nutrient content of the lakes.
Despite these efforts, intensive agriculture continues to be practiced in large former moor and marshland areas such as the Friedlander Große Wiese .
Since 1992 in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, water maintenance and other measures on the 2nd order water bodies have been carried out by the water and soil associations newly formed on the basis of the law on the formation of water maintenance associations .
Only in the years after the fall of the Wall were biological sewage treatment plants introduced across the board. In 2000 there were only two smaller sewage treatment plants without a biological treatment stage. In some cases, more extensive cleaning processes such as phosphorus elimination are also used.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Entry Urstromtal on geodz.com
- ↑ VIA REGIA on geschichtsspuren.m-vp.de
- ^ Müller, Glaser, Kalkbrenner ... on geschichtsspuren.m-vp.de
- ↑ a b Müritz National Park Plan, Volume II - Inventory Analysis, p. 8ff (PDF) ( Memento of the original from January 28, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Elbe flood protection in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Ed. Ministry of Environment Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Rediech & Schade, Rostock 1999
- ↑ a b c “Nature Conservation in Peenetal” Association
- ↑ a b c Renaturation in the Recknitz Valley, published by the State Office for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Geology Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Steffen Printing House, Friedland 2001
- ↑ a b Chronicle of water treatment in Rostock ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b c From the history of Lewitz on goldenstaedt.de ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b Stalu: Recknitz - Natura 2000 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ^ A b Flood disasters on the German Baltic Sea coast, Walter Schumacher, Verlag Rediech & Schade, Rostock 2009
- ↑ a b c Die Lewitz, KR Schulz, Schweriner Volkszeitung printing works, Schwerin 1961
- ↑ Güstrow-Plau or Rostock-Ribnitz ?, Dr. H. Asmus, council and university printing house of Adlers Erben GmdH, Rostock 1907
- ↑ Storm surge protection renaturation Ostzingst, published by the State Office for Environment and Nature Conservation Stralsund, Verlag Rediech & Schade, Rostock 2009
- ^ Hydraulic engineering and water management in Germany, Rolf Meurer, Parey, Berlin 2000
- ↑ Eurawasser - Central Sewage Treatment Plant Rostock ( Memento of the original from October 8, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b Water for Güstrow, Friedrich Lorenz, Laumann-Verlagsgesellschaft, Dülmen 2000
- ↑ Excursion report “The Peenetal” on deutscher-naturschutztag.de ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF file; 144 kB)
- ↑ Current problems in the water balance in Northeast Germany, Ed. Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum, Potsdam 2010
- ^ Lewitz-Melioration, Manfred Bengsch, Markkleeberg 1973
- ↑ In the realm of silence - excursion through moors in Ostvorpommern, part 1, Barbara Havenstein, Wolgast 1996
- ↑ StALU Vorpommern, Stralsund Office - Renaturation of the Recknitz ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ StALU Vorpommern, Stralsund office - renaturation of the middle Trebel ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ StALU Vorpommern, Ueckermünde office - selected hydraulic engineering measures ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ List of completed large-scale nature conservation projects on the BfN website ( Memento of the original from October 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ WFD framework paper, measures from page 21 (PDF file; 3.2 MB)
- ^ The rehabilitation and restoration of the lakes in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Ministry of the Environment, Schwerin 2001
- ^ Law on the formation of water maintenance associations (GUVG) of August 4, 1992 (GVOBl. MV 1992, p. 458).
- ↑ Municipal wastewater disposal in the state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania - situation report 2001, D. Tylla, publisher. State Office for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Geology Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Güstrow 2001
