The Rhine and the floodplain

The contrast is extreme: The straight, fast-flowing Rhine River meets the leisurely branches of the old Rhine arms. Yet both elements are part of a whole. Both channels supply the Rhine floodplain with vital water and nutrients.

Before humans changed the river’s course, the Rhine was a branching network made up of many streams meandering their way slowly towards the sea. To make the Rhine accessible to large ships and the fertile land usable for agriculture, Johann Gottfried Tulla had the ambitious plan to tame the river.

From 1817 to 1876, the Upper Rhine was straightened, which shortened it by 90 kilometres! With this construction, the originally braided, slow-flowing Rhine became a narrow, powerful river. Since then, it has been flowing up to 10 times faster than before, guiding most of the water it carries past the floodplain instead of into it. But as a wetland, the floodplain relies on water—the elixir of life—and this change in water flow has made it much too dry today. That is why the Rhine River and the floodplain have to be connected once again. This is the only way to preserve the ecological diversity of the old floodplain.