Location
General description: The catchment of Lake Fuerstenseer See, that is identical with Fuerstensee CZO, is located in the Mueritz National Park (Mecklenburg Lake District) and covers an area of 40 km². The southern part is embedded in an outwash plain, whereas the northeastern part borders on the terminal moraine of the Last Glacial (Weichselian) Pomeranian Phase. The altitude ranges between 63 and 124 m a.s.l. The hydrography is groundwater dominated; a natural river network does not exist. The area is part of a transitional zone from sub-maritime to sub-continental climate conditions, with a mean annual air temperature of 8.0 °C and a mean sum of annual precipitation of 584 mm. The dominant soils are Cambisols, Luvisols, Gleysols and Histosols. Forests (63 %), consisting mainly of Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) and beech (Fagus sylvatica), dominate the catchment, complemented by arable land and pastures (18 %), lakes (13 %), peatlands (5 %) and settlements (1 %).
Key topics: effects of global change, water budget, hydrogeology, groundwater recharge, vadose zone hydrology, groundwater-lake-interactions, groundwater-tree-interactions, dendrochronology, palaeohydrology of lakes, past land use impacts, carbon cycling and storage, geomicrobiology of peatlands
PI: Theresa Blume
PI: Ingo Heinrich
PI: Knut Kaiser
CO-PI: Andreas Güntner
CO-PI: Sonia Simard