Zwickau Mulde

The Mulde in Wilkau -Haßlau

Template: Infobox River / Obsolete

The Mulde is a river in southwest Saxony with generally northeasterly flow direction. It arises at Schoeneck / Vogtland from two source rivers and forms at Colditz together with the oncoming of Freiberger Mulde the southeastern united trough. The Mulde is smaller than the Freiberger Mulde, with 167 kilometers of the longer of the two sources, but with a water flow of 26.4 m³ / s.

2.1 Nature Spatial Development
2.2 Culture Scenic Development
2.3 Origin of the name

3.1 water structure
3.2 Water Quality

Geography and Hydrology

Course

The Mulde is formed from two source streams, the red trough and the trough whites, both in the field of city Schoeneck at 770 m ü.NHN. From the Muldenberg Dam to its confluence the river Mulde flows mainly to the northeast through wooded area, as well as the places Muldenberg, Hammerbrücke dawn and diamond ring. After the flow is passed into a narrow valley in the Western Ore Mountains, it is a large area dammed at the dam yew floor.

In the floodplain river Mulde takes on the black water and turns to the northwest. The dump happens after Hartenstein, ferry bridge and meadow castle with the former waterworks of the city of Zwickau. From Silver Street State Road 93 follows the valley of the trough. In Wilkau- Haßlau the A 72 crosses the valley with a 718 m long and 50 m high bridge.

Before the trough wraps around the center of its namesake Zwickau east, it forms in the district Cainsdorf rapids, formerly a venue of international kayak slalom competitions, today protected as Geotop because come to light here Steinkohleflöze. In the district Schedewitz the river crosses the Flint line that indicates the southern edge of the Elster glaciation. After the dump has left the Ore Mountains near Zwickau, the valley is broad with wide retention areas in meadows and fields. Here are the VW plant in Mosel and the city Glauchau where the creek empties Lung joke. The close again and rocky widening valley is occupied by numerous castles and still quite densely populated with places Waldenburg, Penig, Rochsburg, Lunzenau and Rochlitz. Near the castle change the flow takes on his biggest by far tributary, the Chemnitz. Near the Wechselburger district Göhren crosses the railway line Leipzig - Chemnitz the valley at a height of 68 meters in the two-story Göhrener viaduct.

In the district of Colditz hamlet Sermuth the Mulde unites after 166 kilometers running with the Freiberger Mulde to the trough. Along the river runs a route of the Mulde valley cycle path.

Catchment area

The 2352 km ² large catchment area of the river Mulde includes large parts of the western Erzgebirge and the Vogtland. It is elongated so that the Mulde is indeed the longer the source of the river Mulde, the Freiberger Mulde but because of its wider catchment area of the water -rich.

Flow regime

The Mulde was hardly regulated and their tributaries up to the first half of the 20th century and has repeatedly ravaged by floods. Even in 1954, cities and villages were ravaged by a flood disaster. Today, the large dam Eibenstock balances the water flow. The damage of the flood of the century in 2002 held at the Mulde and therefore still limited. The dam Eibenstock ran at that time since their rehearsal jam on during commissioning for the first time.

From centuries past is narrated that the river bed was dry at least twice during extreme droughts.

History

Nature Spatial Development

The Mulde flows through the central part to about Rochlitz the Mittelsächsische mountain and hills with rocks which were made long before the Variscan orogeny ( Granulitgebirge ). Below exchange castle rises on the left bank of 353 m above sea level. NHN Rochlitzer high mountain, a well-known through his porphyry tuff rest of Strato volcano from the rock unit of the Permian. Since the Mesozoic, the area is connected with the mainland.

During the uplift and console scholl like Nordwestkippung of the Ore Mountains in the course of the Saxonian Bruchschollentektonik today's north-facing drainage system developed, sometimes with striking direction changes to the northwest. The valley line of the river Mulde above the Northwest Knicks at Aue continues further north continued in the Valley of Zwoenitz. This change of direction be partially attributed to astonished outlying Scandinavian ice sheet during older glaciations. Glacial deposits from the Elster- glacial period are preserved only in remains. About 25 m thick, flint leading sands and gravels at Wechselburg be construed as saale cold time deposits of an old hollow barrel. From the Weichsel glaciation, which ended about 10,000 years ago, comes the nationally widespread loess, the cause of the fertile soils of the region. Then river gravels and sands as well as Auelehm have settled in the valley bottom.

Culture Scenic Development

The valleys in the catchment area of the well were probably used since the end of the last ice age as additions in the area covered by dense forests Erzgebirge what remains of Palaeolithic hunters offices, as well as the Bronze and Iron Age finds up in the upper Erzgebirge show inside.

Later, the Western Ore Mountains belonged to the territory of Germanic and Slavic tribes. Trails, trade routes and military roads and connected the old residential areas around Leipzig and Altenburg with Bohemia. However, the mule tracks shunned the rivers in favor of the ridge. To castles, villages and monasteries developed to inevitable river crossings ( fords, ferries and bridges later ) and on -way junctions. From the castles are preserved Rochsburg, Rochlitz, Wolkenburg, Waldenburg, Forderglauchau, Hinterglauchau and Easter stone, from the castles the meadow castle, castle stone and the Isenburg. For fasteners in the side valleys among others, the locks Hartenstein, wild rock and Schwarzenberg emerged. With the discovery of the prolific silver deposits in the late Middle Ages, tapping into the source streams in the Upper Erzgebirge and the emergence of the mining towns began.

Origin of the name

The old form of the name of the trough: Milda is translated by name researchers as abundance of water. The word element of Mel with respect to milling is sometimes associated with the large number of formerly operated by the river mills in connection, which takes no account of that river names are the oldest, often vorgermanische, geographical names layer.

The distinctive suffix refers to the city of Zwickau, the largest settlement in the course of the river. The Mulde was formerly known as snow or snow Bergische Mulde, so by Christian Lehmann in 1699.

Environment

Water structure

The river is little developed over a long insertion of the upper and middle run. In semi-natural floodplain trough with alternating flow velocity flows in a first block-rich, later gravelly to sandy riverbed. ( The river sand as well as the Göltzsch weakly auriferous. ) In a few sections of the river is channeled. In populated areas, it often accompany flood protection dikes, as the entire city of Zwickau, where the historic town center is now deeper than the river bed by subsidence. Flood events ( especially in August 2002) cause natural changes in the structure of water with bank crashes and sediment retention.

Water quality

About two centuries until the 1990s, the river Mulde was through the introduction of increasing amounts of bad or unexplained, some heavy metal containing waste water, especially in the lower portions loaded so high that the fish fauna was almost extinguished. The water quality has been significantly improved by the elimination of countless industrial plants after the reunification of Germany, so that today the water quality class II -III ( critically polluted ) is characteristic. The Mulde drains the metal processing and mining districts of the Western Ore Mountains, and the industrial regions around Chemnitz and Zwickau. Problems are particularly after completion of the flooding of most mines now exiting pit water. Below Bad Schlema the river takes by outcropping leachate from waste dumps of the former bismuth shaft 371 to a large part of its cargo of uranium, arsenic and other dissolved heavy metals.

Attractions and buildings

Dam Eibenstock

Prince cave ( Hartenstein ) in the slope of the valley below Bad Schlema ( Popp Forest)
Castle stone and
Schloss Wolfsbrunn in Hartenstein
Annual exhibition rafts in the trough Berger raft grave system
Above Zwickau, in Cainsdorf, the trough cuts to the Rußkohlenflöz. This rare in Saxony only constantly exposed outcrop of a Steinkohlenflözes and Central Europe digestion of three geological eras ( Silurian, Devonian Upper Carboniferous ) is protected as Geotop and geological monument of nature.
Osterstein Castle in Zwickau

Economy

Since the late Middle Ages, the water of the well and its tributaries is used technically. It served the mining industry over many centuries as a surcharge water to power conveyors, Erzhämmern and Pochwerken and for Erzwäschen.

The timber rafting is occupied for the first time for the year 1275 and found at times of higher water flow not only take place on the river, but also on the historical raft ditches, some of which are still recognizable, sometimes even functional as the Floßgraben at Schlema or trough Berger raft grave system. The strains were recovered at Zwickau using rakes from the river and stacked on the wood Anger hereafter named.

From the abundance of fish of the river many families could live. With the increasing water pollution in the course of industrialization in the 19th and 20th centuries, the fishing ground to a halt. Today, the water quality has improved significantly. However, the large number of barrages complicates the re-introduction of natural wildlife. In the summer months of last year, there was some equipment repeatedly to drop below the minimum flow requirements up to dry traps of individual sections of the river. Even today there are numerous weirs in operation, which are essentially the generation of electricity.

The Mulde in the Ore Mountains locks provide today the metropolitan area of Chemnitz -Zwickau with drinking water.

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