Excursion on the topic of “Global Change and Transformation in Central Germany”

This year’s excursion on the topic of “Global Change and Transformation in Central Germany” took place in Central Germany for the students of Physical Geography (Bachelor) and students of Landscape Sciences (Master).

Supervised by Nadja Kabisch and Henning Schumacher, a total of 21 students spent the two weeks between the 09.09.2024 – 20.09.2024 studying the landscape structures and transformation processes in central Germany and the southern part of Leipzig as a former lignite mining area. The topics of process conservation, land restoration and the development of the New Lakes landscape were of particular interest.

A variety of urban areas (e.g. Halle, Leipzig, Grimma) and locations such as Leipzig's “Auwald”, the waterways of the Weiße Elster and the Karl-Heine Canal were explored on foot, by bike and by kayak. During visits to the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) and the Auwald crane, the latter with colleagues from the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), the challenges of climate change in terms of damage to vegetation due to intensified dry periods, urban planning measures (e.g. sponge city, green infrastructure) and social change were discussed.