The Barnbruch is a

wetland A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...

of international importance in the old

glacial valley U-shaped valleys, also called trough valleys or glacial troughs, are formed by the process of glaciation. They are characteristic of mountain glaciation in particular. They have a characteristic U shape in cross-section, with steep, straight s ...

of the river

Aller Aller may refer to: Places Rivers * Aller (Germany), a major river in North Germany *Aller (Asturian river), a river in Asturias, Spain *River Aller, a small river on Exmoor in Somerset, England Inhabited places in the United Kingdom *Aller, Devo ...

that provides a habitat for endangered species of

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

amphibian Amphibians are tetrapod, four-limbed and ectothermic vertebrates of the Class (biology), class Amphibia. All living amphibians belong to the group Lissamphibia. They inhabit a wide variety of habitats, with most species living within terres ...

s and

insect Insects (from Latin ') are pancrustacean hexapod invertebrates of the class Insecta. They are the largest group within the arthropod phylum. Insects have a chitinous exoskeleton, a three-part body ( head, thorax and abdomen), three pairs ...

s. It lies between the city of

Wolfsburg Wolfsburg (; Eastphalian: ''Wulfsborg'') is the fifth largest city in the German state of Lower Saxony, located on the river Aller. It lies about east of Hanover and west of Berlin. Wolfsburg is famous as the location of Volkswagen AG's hea ...

and town of

Gifhorn Gifhorn () is a town and capital of the district of Gifhorn in the east of Lower Saxony, Germany. It has a population of about 42,000 and is mainly influenced by the small distance to the more industrial and commercially important cities nearby, ...

and consists of an enclosed woodland area of around with surrounding meadows and pastures. This low-lying depression lies partly within the territory of the city of Wolfsburg and partly within

Gifhorn district Gifhorn () is a district in Lower Saxony, Germany. Geography The district is located at the border of Saxony-Anhalt and extends from the southern edge of the Lüneburg Heath () in the north to the suburbs of Braunschweig and Wolfsburg in the so ...

. Together with the

Drömling Drömling is a sparsely populated depression on the border of Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt in Germany with an area of about . The larger part belonging to Saxony-Anhalt in the east has been a nature park since 1990. The former swampland was tr ...

around 15 km to the east, the Barnbruch is the most valuable ecological lowland region along the upper course of the

Location

The Barnbruch is about 4 x 7 kilometres across and is bordered: *To the west by the

Elbe Lateral Canal The Elbe Lateral Canal (german: Elbe-Seitenkanal; ), is a long canal in Lower Saxony, Germany. It runs from the Mittelland Canal near Gifhorn to the Elbe in Artlenburg. It forms an important transport connection between southern and northern Ge ...

and the artificial lake of the Tankumsee ( Isenbüttel) *To the north by the

and the villages of Osloß and Weyhausen *To the east by the industrial facilities of the Wolfsburg

Volkswagen Volkswagen (),English: , . abbreviated as VW (), is a German Automotive industry, motor vehicle manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Founded in 1937 by the German Labour Front under the Nazi Party and revived into a ...

factory *To the south by the ''K 114'' district road (Wolfsburg-Gifhorn northern link) and the village of

Calberlah Calberlah is a municipality in the district of Gifhorn, in Lower Saxony, Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, a ...

Drainage

Originally the Barnbruch was a carr (''Bruchwald'') or fen woodland. In 1830 it was the cause of complaint by the inhabitants of the neighbouring villages to their king. They said that, for years, they had not been able to harvest any hay and that their farms had been ruined by floods. Following a state treaty in 1860 between

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...

, the

Kingdom of Hanover The Kingdom of Hanover (german: Königreich Hannover) was established in October 1814 by the Congress of Vienna, with the restoration of George III to his Hanoverian territories after the Napoleonic era. It succeeded the former Electorate of Han ...

and

Duchy of Brunswick The Duchy of Brunswick (german: Herzogtum Braunschweig) was a historical German state. Its capital city, capital was the city of Braunschweig, Brunswick (). It was established as the successor state of the Principality of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel ...

over the regulation of the

and the

Ohre The Ohre is a river in northern Germany, left tributary to the Elbe. Its total length is . Its source is north of Wolfsburg, in Lower Saxony. It flows generally south-east, at first following the border of Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt. After B ...

, work began on draining the area. The main contribution to this effort was the

Aller Canal The Aller Canal (german: Allerkanal) is a canal built in the mid-19th century in the German state of Lower Saxony. The canal is long and runs between Wolfsburg and Gifhorn. It was built to protect agricultural land from flooding by the river Alle ...

, built 1860-63, between

and

. Draining the land of water turned the

swamp A swamp is a forested wetland.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p. Swamps are considered to be transition zones because both land and water play a role in ...

s into a wetland with a rich variety of trees, in which both fen and riverside woods with birch, oak, ash and alder trees could flourish. Today large parts of the Barnbruch are

nature reserve A nature reserve (also known as a wildlife refuge, wildlife sanctuary, biosphere reserve or bioreserve, natural or nature preserve, or nature conservation area) is a protected area of importance for flora, fauna, or features of geological or ...

s, in which several areas have been left to evolve without any human intervention.

Wood

Up to 1770 the swampy Bruchwald was not forested and pine trees only grew on a few higher points (sand dunes of

ice age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages and gree ...

origin). The high levels of

ground water Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and soil pore spaces and in the fractures of rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available freshwater in the world is groundwater. A unit of rock or an unconsolidated ...

and periodic flooding created alder groves which were largely inaccessible to people. In 1833 softwood trees, especially the

alder Alders are trees comprising the genus ''Alnus'' in the birch family Betulaceae. The genus comprises about 35 species of monoecious trees and shrubs, a few reaching a large size, distributed throughout the north temperate zone with a few sp ...

accounted for 82% of the total area, whilst

pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. The World Flora Online created by the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and Missouri Botanical Garden accep ...

s covered only 1%. In 1875, as a result of the drainage, this had fundamentally changed. Now alders on covered 42% of the land, whilst pine and

birch A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus ''Betula'' (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech-oak family Fagaceae. The genus ''Betula'' contains 30 ...

now made up 51%.

Sources

*''Der Barnbruch'' in: ''Naturschutzgebiete im Raum Gifhorn-Wolfsburg'', Jürgen Schröder, 1986 Gifhorn

External links

Description of the Barnbruch nature reserve
{{Coord, 52.45643, N, 10.65262, E, region:DE-NI_type:landmark, display=title, format=dms Nature reserves in Lower Saxony Wolfsburg Forests and woodlands of Lower Saxony Gifhorn (district) Wetlands of Germany