Elbe River

• Category: Inland Aquatic Biomes.
• Geographic Location: Europe.
• Summary: The Elbe River passes through the heart of northern Europe; its basin holds an extensive, contiguous floodplain forest, making for a very fertile area for vegetation and animal habitats.

The Elbe River is the third-longest river in Europe; more than 679 miles (1,093 kilometers) long, it is geographically represented in three regions. The Upper Elbe headwaters and tributaries rise in the Czech Republic, deep within the Krkonoše Mountains, flowing downstream through the Bohemian basin, where its waters bend toward the northwest. It merges with the Vltava (Moldau) River before passing through the Bohemian uplands, then flows over volcanic bedrock at Ustí nad Labem, just below the picturesque ruins of the Schreckenstein Castle, a 14th-century icon overlooking the last weir impounding the Elbe's waters in the Czech Republic. The river here passes through a canyon down into the north German lowlands.

From Ustí nad Labem to the Geesthacht weir, a 386-mile (622-kilometer) stretch, the Middle Elbe flows unimpeded through one of the largest contiguous floodplain forests in central Europe. From Pardubice to Hamburg, the river is used extensively for navigation. The Lower Elbe flows past Hamburg and Geesthacht into an estuary leading out to the North Sea at Cuxhaven-Kugelbake. The fluvial interaction of the Elbe River with the North Sea tides has been substantially altered by deep dredging projects initiated to accommodate large ocean ships docking inland at Hamburg.

The river's catchment area of 57,400 square miles (148,650 square kilometers) includes lands in Germany and the Czech Republic, as well as very small parts in Austria and Poland. Its tributaries include the Vltava, Saale, Havel, Mulde, Black Elster, and Ohre Rivers. Nearly one-quarter of Germany's land mass and more than half the area of the Czech Republic drain into the Elbe's alluvial waters. Its basin is home to more than 25 million people. The river is one of three (the Ems and Weser included) that transverse the western German landscape toward the German bight on the North Sea coastline.

Located at the northeastern periphery of Germany, the Elbe for centuries, has served as the main commercial waterway for central and eastern Germany. Since ancient times, the Elbe was considered an important geographic landmark separating lands on its eastern and western flanks. For centuries, it served as the eastern border of the Holy Roman Empire. All of these roles as boundaries were important culturally—and, therefore have had profound feedback ecologically to the river and its surrounding habitats.

The Elbe is one of several rivers that flow into what is known as the northern European drainage system. Other rivers that contribute to this catchment area include the Saale, Weser, Rhine, Meuse, Scheldt, Thames, Somme, and Seine. Over a long geologic history, the course of the Elbe River was modified by tectonic activity; climate variability; the formation of massive glacial lakes, and complex depositions of clays, gravels, silts, and sediments. During the last ice age, a sheet of ice advanced to the central borders of Germany and Poland. Meltwaters trapped behind the sheets could move only east and west, creating the valleys, bottomlands, and marshes so familiar today along the North Sea coastline.

Habitats and Species

The basin area surrounding the Middle Elbe holds one of the largest contiguous floodplain forests in Europe. A temperate broadleaf forest, this region (locally called the Garden Kingdom of Dessau-Wörlitz) is included in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Cultural Heritage list. The species-rich aquatic vegetation results in a dense population of such key mammals as the Elbe beaver (Castor fiber albicus).

The Flusslandschaft Elbe Biosphere Reserve includes five German states, including Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Niedersachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt, and Schleswig-Holstein. Particular care is given here to the restoration of lakes, the protection of beaver habitats, and the reintroduction of Atlantic salmon. In April 1998, a fish pass was created at the Geesthacht weir in Germany; another pass was built in 2002 at the Střekov lock in Ústí nad Labem in the Czech Republic. Continued restoration of some segments of the river makes it possible to build spawning grounds for other anadromous and freshwater fish to propagate.

The Elbe's expansive floodplain forests are popular breeding sites for black storks (Ciconia nigra) and a habitat for numerous raptor species, including the lesser-spotted eagle (Aquila pomarina) and white-tailed eagle (Haliaeetus albicilla). The area is of national and international significance due to the number of bird species that breed, rest, hunt, or pass through it.

The area is also home to endangered species; some are threatened with extinction, such as the water chestnut (Trapa natans), floating fern (Salvinia natans), Siberian iris (Iris sibirica), and water soldier (Stratiotes aloides) among the flora; and the fire-bellied toad (Bombina bombina) and moor frog (Rana arvalis) among the fauna.

Wandering bats use the Elbe floodplain on their long flights between nursery roosts and wintering grounds. Large contiguous old-hardwood riverside woodlands offer breeding places to the middle spotted woodpecker, red kite, and white-tailed eagle.

More than 1,000 species of plants grow along the floodplain forests and meadows and within the backwaters of the Elbe. Common tree species of the hardwood floodplains include English oak, elm, and field maple. The plants of the riverside meadows are adapted to the periodic changes in the river's water levels. Native species include the rare fern family Salvinia, the genus Rorippa, and the protected species water caltrop and squincywort.

Human Impact

Small-scale, locally intensive horticulture was common in central Europe until approximately the 10th century when the scope and technology of agricultural production expanded to meet the needs of a rising urban population. Early communities transplanted wild cereal grains to moist soils on lands where groundwater was plentiful. Water also provided the power needed for a variety of mill technologies that supported the initial expansion of commercial trade networks. Plowed fields eventually dominated woodland terrains, affecting alluvial depositions and patterns of discharge into streams and rivers, particularly during winter rains and snowmelts.

Three-crop rotation systems became the norm in northern Europe. During this period, fish became a popular commodity. During the medieval warm period, stresses on fisheries were noted, with remarkable declines in anadromous and cold-water populations. Subsequent privatization and commercialization of marine fish stocks along the coasts contributed to a steep rise in medieval market values for wild freshwater fish.

Central Germany is remarkable for its fertile loess soils that lie atop extensive beds of lignite, a resource whose extraction conflicted with the region's agricultural production. Because of the proximity of Germany's prime agricultural lands to industrial centers like Magdeburg, Hanover, and Breslau, extensive scientific planning and research went into raising the sugar yield of beets. By the early 20th century, the country grew more than 25 percent of the world's sugar beet production. This success was due to the country's wide-scale production and distribution of potash from its interior and the cheap labor provided by women and children. Salt, chemicals, and fertilizers were leading downstream industries. Other products included paper, paper pulp, glass, lignite, and processed grains. Upstream traffic included porcelain, cattle food, bituminous coal, cereal grains, petroleum products, raw textile materials, and mineral ores.

During the 1970s and 1980s, the German Democratic Republic—Communist East Germany—mined more coal than any other country in the world; its burning emitted more than 5.6 million tons (5.1 million metric tons) of sulphur dioxide per year. Acid rain destroyed 9,000 lakes and nearly 40 percent of East German forests. Chemical, industrial, and agricultural effluents were discharged into area waterways, including salts, heavy metals, acids, carbon compounds, mercury, and dioxins. The nuclear plant disaster at Chornobyl in 1986 drew world attention to the unprecedented decline of the Eastern European environment.

Following the reunification of the German state, the International Commission for the Protection of the Elbe River was established in 1990, to restore the river's ecosystems and to mitigate the effects of its pollutants on the North Sea and adjacent estuaries and wetlands. Other protocols that govern the management and protection of the Elbe River include the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands (adopted in 1971), the International Commission for the Protection of the Elbe River Agreement, the European Union (EU) Water Framework Directive, the Natura 2000 directives, and the EU Nature Legislation (the Birds Directive as adopted in 1979 and amended in 2009, and the Habitats Directive as adopted in 1992).

The exploitation of the area's resources, coupled with man-made disasters and the effects of climate change, are contributing to erosion problems along much of the contemporary Elbe River. Pollution within the river, particularly toxic chemicals such as perfluorooctane sulfonic acid (PFOS) and perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), continues to be a concern due to their widespread occurrence. A lack of reliable rainfall due to global warming has already been recorded; its continuance will jeopardize the river's future and threaten the integrity of its floodplain broadleaf forests and other habitats. The mouth of the Elbe will have to be protected against the ravages of sea-level rise, which are projected to include marshland inundation, saltwater intrusion, and invasive species expansion.

Bibliography

Blackbourn, David. The Conquest of Nature: Water, Landscape, and the Making of Modern Germany. Norton, 2006.

Dominick, Raymond H., III. The Environmental Movement in Germany: Prophets and Pioneers 1871-1971. Indiana University Press, 1992.

Jones, Merrill E. "Origins of the East German Environmental Movement." German Studies Review, vol. 16, no. 2, 1993, pp. 235-64.

Ledvinka, Ondrej, and Thomas Recknagal. "Long-Term Persistence in Discharge Time Series of Mountainous Catchments in the Elbe River Basin." PIAHS, vol. 383, 2020, pp. 135-40, doi.org/10.5194/piahs-383-135-2020. Accessed 30 Oct. 2024.

Lekan, Thomas, and Thomas Zeller, editors. Germany's Nature: Cultural Landscapes and Environmental History. Rutgers University Press, 2005.

Marshal, Jan. "Salmon Swim Again in Czech Elbe River." Phys.org, 13 May 2011, www.physorg.com/news/2011-05-salmon-czech-elbe-river.html. Accessed 30 Oct. 2024.

Tockner, Klement, et al., editors. Rivers of Europe. Academic Press, 2009.

Zhu, Xu, et al. "Evaluation and Prediction of Anthropogenic Impacts on Long-Term Multimedia Fate and Health Risks of PFOS and PFOA in the Elbe River Basic." Water Research, vol. 257, 2024, doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2024.121675. Accessed 30 Oct. 2024.