Results of lake water analysis from Lake Geiseltal in Saxony-Anhalt during the Inland Water Remote Sensing Validation Campaign 2017

It was created by the excavation of lignite in several former surface mines starting at industrial scale in 1906 (formerly only small-scale mining dated back to 1698; Knochenhauer 1996). Mining stopped 1993 after 1.4*109 tons of lignite and the same mass of overburden were excavated.

To stabilize the slopes of the residual mine pits and to avoid acidification from mine drainage, a planned, large scale flooding of the residual mine pits started in 2003 by pumping water from River Saale that was cleaned up by sand filtration before (Fritz et al. 2001). In 2011, the flooding of the lake was completed (LMBV 2018). Algal productivity in the lake is low and water transparency high, the littoral compartments along the shores harbor large stocks of submerged macrophytes.