The bright side of the current drought: the Sperrmauermodel at the Edersee is being revealed
It didn’t rain a lot during the last few weeks. Well, actually it didn’t rain at all. Farmers, gardeners, and boatmen are complaining already. Nature is allegedly drying out – plants and trees need to be watered. The Rhine is as low as never before in a November. Only very few boats can still go up the river. Alarm!? Isn’t there anything good about this situation? Well, there is!
All the Barrier lakes have lost a lot of water this fall. Many of them are used to regulate the level of the bigger German rivers in order to maintain navigability. That’s nothing special. This year, however, was quite dry overall. Therefore, the level of the lakes was pretty low in August already. They’re still getting emptier. Barrier lake logically means that an artificial lake was built where there wasn’t a natural one before, at least not a bigger one. This again means that a certain area was flooded i.e. is now covered by water. Houses, bridges, and streets were destroyed. During this drought, those treasures are being revealed again. This is what’s happening at the Edersee in North Hessen right now.
The Edersee was built at the beginning of the last century. It’s about 27km long. Several old villages were flooded. Most well-known is Berich as it is to appear first of all the old sites and can be visited nearly every year.
This is also the case for the bridge of Asel that led over the Eder. Well, it still does. It shows up every year with the Eder flowing in its original river bed underneath then. There are some spots, though, that only appear very seldom. One of them is a 1:40 model of the lake’s dam that was used to test the flow conditions that would be in the finished lake. It can only be seen when the level of the lake is less than 221,05 metres above sea level. Today, the lake’s level is about 220,73m above sea level. About a quarter of the model is therefore sticking out of the lake already. The model itself is about 1,20m high. It’s placed next to an old ironwork. The remains of the latter can be seen much earlier. The level of the lake is currently falling about 6-9cm each day. According to the weather forecast, there will be some drizzle at the end of the week. It still won’t be enough to cover the model again, I assume. However, if it really starts to rain heavily, the lake fills pretty quickly. So if you want to see it, go as soon as possible. The last time it could be seen was in 2003 and it is usually only visible about every 10 years. Here are some more pictures…
