Kendel

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Aerial view of Weeze . On the right edge of the picture the Niers in a typical, meandering Kendel channel

As Kendel (from MHG . Kandel / kanel / kenel = tube, gutter, water line) in the Lower Rhine the winding depressions referred flat terrain, as Altstromrinnen the strongly meandering and feral Ur-Rhine have arisen.

Together with the elevations of the terrain surrounded by islands, called Donk on the Lower Rhine , the Kendel form a characteristic landscape element of the Lower Rhine lowlands .

Linguistic origin and usage

The name Kendel is only used in the Lower Rhine with the meaning mentioned. Other terms are used in other German regions in which geologically similar old stream channels are found.

The waters that run in the Kendel gutters today are often referred to as the Kendel . Other regional names for such waters that are more common on the Lower Rhine are Ley and Fleuth (Flöth, Fluth) .

Kendel is derived, similar to the word canal or the southern German name Kandel , from the Middle Latin canna , which originally meant (reed) cane . From this it was with time tube or pipe , as well as other water pipes, channels, and open flume derived.

Originally, Kendel was used with the male grammatical gender ("the Kendel"); today the feminine form ("the Kendel") is more common, especially for flowing waters.

Origin and morphology

In the Saale Ice Age , the inland ice penetrated from Scandinavia to the Lower Rhine Plain, piled up the Lower Rhine ridge in front of its edge as a compression moraine and pushed the Ur-Rhine westward, into what is now the area of Niers and Maas .

After the ice retreated, the Rhine shifted - very slowly - back to the east in the direction of its current bed. This happened more often in floods, especially in later intermediate warm phases ( interstadials ) and at the end of the Vistula / Würm glaciation . During these times, the primeval Rhine, especially at the time of the spring flood , was transformed by the meltwater from glaciers and snow from the Alps and low mountain ranges into a mighty, torrential stream that flooded the Lower Rhine lowlands over a width of several 10 kilometers, the large amounts of sand , gravel and crushed rock down transported out of the mountains and the plains as river terraces was deposited Aufschotterung . Due to the low gradient and the sediment deposits, the Ur-Rhine began to meander strongly and "overgrown" as soon as it entered the Lower Rhine Bay , ie it branched out into a multitude of meandering arms. Particularly at high tide, the river deposited coarser sediments on sand and gravel banks, which dried up again at low tide. These benches formed island-like terrace slabs, known today as Donk , which rise slightly from the lowlands. The tributaries lying between the Donken were traversed even at low tide and thus cut a little deeper into the river terraces. The gullies were sharply delimited at the edges, but the difference in height between Kendeln and Donken is small because of the flat terrain, only about 1 to 3 meters.

With the transition to the Holocene warm period, about 10,000 years ago, the floods became weaker, the eastward shift was complete and the Rhine found its current bed. The numerous tributaries were flooded less and less, at some point separated from the main course of the Rhine and silted up in the course of the Holocene, probably especially in the Atlantic around 8,000 to 4,000 years ago (in terms of cultural history in the Mesolithic ).

Today, most are Kendel by fens filled and just as convoluted, moist lowlands identifiable on the ground. Often there is a smaller, ditch - or pond-like residual water in the Kendel . In some places, these waters, often by peat cutting , seeartig widened. Due to the flat terrain, the waters have hardly any gradient, so that hardly any current can be detected (borderline case between still and flowing waters ). The formerly sharp edge to the neighboring Donk has eroded into a flat embankment in many places.

Because of the moist, boggy subsoil and the susceptibility to flooding during high water, the Kendel lowlands are not used for agriculture at all or only as grassland . The dry, sandy Donke, on the other hand, are suitable as arable land and for settlement .

distribution

Particularly widespread - and also referred to - are Kendel in the Kendel and-Donken landscapes at the left Niederrhein , east of the Lower Rhine ridge between Krefeld , about Moers , Kamp-Lintfort , Rheinberg , Xanten , Kalkar and Kleve way to Nijmegen . The Kendel-Donken systems also form a distinctive landscape element in the lowlands on the west side of the Lower Rhine ridge, which was formerly also flowed through by the Ur-Rhine, along the Niers from Issum via Geldern , Kevelaer and Goch to the Maas near Gennep .

Outside the Lower Rhine region, south of Krefeld and in the Dutch Rhine-Maas delta west of the Rhine breakthrough at the Gelderse Poort near Nijmegen, there are end-like old Rhine channels, but these are not given the regional name Kendel .

In addition to numerous examples with other names (Ley, Fleuth, Bach, Graben, ...) the following bodies of water are also identified by name as Kendel :

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Boris Paraschkewow: Words and names of the same origin and structure: Lexicon of etymological duplicates in German . Walter de Gruyter, 2004, ISBN 3-11-017470-7 ( limited preview in the Google book search).
  2. ↑ GeoLog 2001. The Geological Service reports . esp. Siberian climate section on the Lower Rhine . Geological Survey North Rhine-Westphalia - Landesbetrieb, Krefeld 2001 ( full text as PDF ).
  3. ↑ a b Description of the area Fleuthkuhlen. NRW Foundation , accessed on July 10, 2012 .
  4. ^ A b c Section Landscape Planning of the Wesel District (ed.): Explanatory volume on the landscape plan of the Wesel district. Sonsbeck / Xanten area . District Wesel, 2004 ( full text as PDF ).
  5. ↑ a b Cultuur - culture. History and culture guide . Euregio Rhein-Maas-Nord , Mönchengladbach December 2005 ( full text as PDF ). Full text as PDF ( Memento of the original from January 29, 2013 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.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.euregio-rmn.de
  6. ↑ Kendel and Donkenland around Kevelaer. (PDF; 6.1 MB) NABU Kreisverband Kleve, accessed on July 10, 2012 .
  7. ↑ Renate Gerlach: Holocene: The transformation of the landscape by humans since the Neolithic . In: J. Kunow, H. Wegner (ed.): Urgeschichte im Rheinland . Publishing house of the Rhenish Association for Monument Preservation and Landscape Protection, Cologne, p. 87–98 ( full text as PDF ). Full text as PDF ( memento of the original dated December 3, 2013 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.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.geographie.uni-koeln.de
  8. ^ Regional Association Ruhr, Geoinformation and Spatial Observation Unit (ed.): Climate analysis of the city of Moers . in particular Section 3: Natural structure . Essen 2006 ( full text as PDF ). Full text as PDF ( Memento of the original from December 15, 2014 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.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.cdu-moers.de
  9. ↑ Water code numbers according to the digital water station map of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on July 13, 2012 ; Retrieved August 10, 2012 . 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. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.lanuv.nrw.de