Fintau

Mill Pond in the Fintau Eggermühlen at Wesseloh

The Fintau is a 18.3 km long left tributary of WÃ ¼ mme in Niedersachsen, Germany. The river rises southeast of Eggermühlen at Wesseloh district Heidekreis and flows mainly in North -West direction, first by natural forest, field and meadow areas in the nature reserve in the Upper Fintautal Samtgemeinde Fintel. It crosses the municipality Vahlde and flows north-west of Lauenbrück in the hardly equal Wümme.

Larger inflows of Fintau are Ruschwede, Benkeloher ditch Florgraben, Wesseloher ditch and Easter Neither Bach.

The Fintau is since a few years back habitat of sea trout and salmon. The angling clubs Lauenbrück and Fintel operate here since 1982, a reintroduction project for this large salmonids.

Fintaubegradigung and restoration measures

Up to the 50s, the areas along the lower course of the Fintau between Vahlde and Lauenbrück of waterlogging and frequent floods were characterized. Accordingly, the vegetation was limited to Sedges. In order to increase agricultural yields by crop losses also be prevented by floods that Fintau 1955-1956 was straightened in this area. The sole width was expanded from 3-4 to 5.30 m, the base slope decreased from 0.92 to 0.4 %. By construction diminished the swampy nature of the terrain, and meadows and fields were agriculturally more usable. As part of the measures also backwaters of the river were cut off. One of these backwaters has a length of 200 m and was reactivated 2007-2008 model region Wümme for the purpose of biodiversity conservation in the context of the project. The cost was € 31,250, of which the state of Lower Saxony took over 80%.

Fintauwehr

Due to the large floods in the years 2002 and 2008 was built in 2009 /2010 the village Lauenbrück to protect against floods, a 700 m long dam with flood barrier.