Initial situation

During more than 80 years' history of lignite mining here, 1.27 billion m³ of spoil have been removed and 508 million tonnes of lignite mined. The recultivation of Goitzsche's large opencast mine includes a land area of 3,360 hectares, and four lakes with a surface area of 2,350 hectares. The rehabilitation of this large opencast mine, just outside the city of Bitterfeld, is being conducted in such a way that it will be able to satisfy as wide a range of potential uses as well as possible.

Approach

The material was moved exclusively by rail. A wood and meadow area with a landscape strongly influenced by ground water has been developed into a wood and lake landscape. Finely-adjusted rehabilitation and recultivation measures have shaped the land and lakeside area appropriately and built paths to meet the special objectives. The area is characterised by isolated tips of a range of heights and variously-sloped embankments. More than 66 km of embankments and slopes have been permanently consolidated by engineering and biological stabilisation and retention measures; the waters have been prepared for fishery management and initially successfully stocked with vendace, financial support coming from the State of Sachsen-Anhalt.

Result

The lakes, the Pouch peninsula, with its Agora and art projects, the floating bridge and water level tower, the Bitterfeld Waterfront, and the jetty are all, like the lakes, part of the new, man-made landscape. More than 580 hectares have been newly planted for forestry. In collaboration with the German Alliance for the Environment and Nature Conservation (BUND) a project named “Wagt Wildnis” has been launched; it is the largest project in the central German coal field, and easily covers 1,000 hectares. At present the LMBV has, in collaboration with the State of Saxony-Anhalt, designated about 25% of the entire opencast mining area as nature conservation-relevant. By including the large open-cast mining area of Goitzsche in its programme because of its landscape art projects EXPO 2000 gave its visitors the opportunity of gaining a new and independent introduction to post-opencast mining landscapes.