Ammersee

Ammersee (English: Lake Ammer) is a Zungenbecken lake in Upper Bavaria, Germany, southwest of Munich between the towns of Herrsching and Dießen am Ammersee. With a surface area of approximately , it is the sixth largest lake in Germany. The lake is at an elevation of , and has a maximum depth of . Like other Bavarian lakes, Ammersee developed as a result of the ice age glaciers melting. Ammersee is fed by the River Ammer, which flows as the Amper out of the lake. Like neighbouring Lake Starnberg - deeper, bigger in surface area, similar in shape - it is a popular location for watersports.

Ammersee and the Amper are part of the ancient Celtic amber trading route leading to the Brenner Pass. The word ''Ammer'' is a 13th-century form of ''Amper'', the Celtic ''*ambra'', deriving from the Indo-European ''*ombh-, *mbh-'' "wet, Water".

Passenger services have operated on the lake since 1879. Today they are operated by the Bayerische Seenschifffahrt company, using a mixture of historic paddle steamers and motor ships.

Ecology, biology and conservation

The water quality, which was endangered in the sixties of the 20th century, was significantly improved by comprehensive wastewater remediation measures such as the construction of a ring main, the commissioning of the sewage treatment plant in Eching in 1971 and the rehabilitation of the sewage treatment plants in the Ammer catchment area. Further information on the history and development of the Eching wastewater treatment plant is provided by AWA-Ammersee, which manages drinking water and wastewater in the region. Since the mid-1980s, the nutrient load of the water has shifted from the eutrophic to the mesotrophic range, which means that the nutrient load is low to moderate, the production of algae is moderate, and the average visual depth is over 2 m. The use of the Ammersee as a bathing water is thus secured in the long term.

Among the fish living in the lake, an endemic whitefish (''Coregonus bavaricus'') is known, a whitefish species mainly found in the pre-Alpine lakes, whose occurrence has led to a long tradition of quite intensive fishing exploitation of the lake. The lake is also home of the vulnerable species of deepwater char '' Salvelinus evasus''. Deepwater char are highly sensitive to changes in the quality of the water and some species such as '' Salvelinus neocomensis'' and '' Salvelinus profundus'' were driven recently to extinction in other European lakes. In 2010, even a new species of fish, the Ammersee Kaulbarsch (''Gymnocephalus ambriaelacus''), which is also found only in the Ammersee, was described.

With the nature reserves ''Vogelfreistätte Ammersee-Südufer'' (in which the ''Schwedeninsel'' is also located), ''Seeholz'' and ''Seewiese'' as well as ''Ampermoos'', the Ammersee is one of the seven internationally important wetlands in Bavaria according to the so-called Ramsar Convention. On the western shore, access to the shore is closed to the general public except for short stretches, but almost the entire eastern shore is open to the public. Large areas of the shore are still in a near-natural state, but the formerly dense reed beds have decreased significantly since the end of the 1960s. In contrast, microplastic pollution has increased.Martin Müller:
Forscher finden jede Menge Mikroplastik in bayerischen Seen
'' In: ''nordbayern.de.'' 29 October 2019, retrieved 29 October 2019.

Gallery

File:Ammersee2004.JPG, Eastern shore
File:Ammersee_Autumn.jpg, Autumn
File:- Ammersee - Paddleboat Diessen 03 -.jpg, Paddle Steamer ''Diessen'' on the lake
File:Map Ammersee.png, Map of lake with settlements and deepest point marked
Ammersee 29.01.2006.jpg, Ice on the Ammersee (2006)

References

External links

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Pictures of the Ammersee

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Ramsar sites in Germany
Lakes of Bavaria
LAmmersee