The Alfsee is a

reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including control ...

in the north of the district of

Osnabrück Osnabrück (; wep, Ossenbrügge; archaic ''Osnaburg'') is a city in the German state of Lower Saxony. It is situated on the river Hase in a valley penned between the Wiehen Hills and the northern tip of the Teutoburg Forest. With a populat ...

in the state of

Lower Saxony Lower Saxony (german: Niedersachsen ; nds, Neddersassen; stq, Läichsaksen) is a German state (') in northwestern Germany. It is the second-largest state by land area, with , and fourth-largest in population (8 million in 2021) among the 16 ...

in north

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany lies between the Baltic and North Sea to the north and the Alps to the sou ...

. It has an area of 2.2 km². It acts as a flood

retention basin A retention basin, sometimes called a wet pond, wet detention basin, or stormwater management pond (SWMP), is an artificial pond with vegetation around the perimeter and a permanent pool of water in its design. It is used to manage stormwater ...

for the

catchment area In human geography, a catchment area is the area from which a location, such as a city, service or institution, attracts a population that uses its services and economic opportunities. Catchment areas may be defined based on from where people ar ...

of the

Hase The Hase is a long river of Lower Saxony, Germany. It is a right tributary of the Ems, but part of its flow goes to the Else, that is part of the Weser basin. Its source is in the Teutoburg Forest, south-east of Osnabrück, on the north slope ...

and as local recreational area.

Geography

The Alfsee is located in the north of Bramgau in Osnabrücker Land. It lies around 25 km north of the city of

and 8 km north of Bramsche, southeast of the Ankum Heights. About 95% of its area belongs to the parish of

Alfhausen Alfhausen is a village in the collective municipality (''Samtgemeinde'') of Bersenbrück in the district of Osnabrück, Lower Saxony, Germany. Geography Location Alfhausen is located just under 27 km north of Osnabrück, and is in the n ...

to the west, after which the reservoir is named. The rest, a

bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a small, circular bay with a nar ...

on the eastern side of the lake is in the parish of

Rieste Rieste is a municipality in the district of Osnabrück, in Lower Saxony, Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG),, is a country in Central Europe. It is the most populous member state of the European Union. G ...

Lake environment

Four lakes

The water surface of the Alfsee covers 2.2 km² and its shore is about 7 km long. Its maximum north-south length is 2.88 km. From east to west the lake is up to 330 m across in the south and 1,350 m in the north. It has a capacity of 20 million m³ at a depth of 2 m. Immediately to the south, where the artificially constructed conduit of the river

flows into the Alfsee lakes, there is a small auxiliary basin (''Absetzbecken'') in front of the actual reservoir, from which water flows into the lake via a roughly 330 m long overflow dam. To the east the Alfsee borders on the small ''Dubbelausee'', which is up to 400 m long in an east-west direction and up to 360 m long from north to south and set at a height of {{Höhe, 37, DE-NN, link=true. Just to the northeast, as part of as small

nature reserve A nature reserve (also known as a wildlife refuge, wildlife sanctuary, biosphere reserve or bioreserve, natural or nature preserve, or nature conservation area) is a protected area of importance for flora, fauna, or features of geological or ...

there is a reserve basin (''Reservebecken''), which is up to 700 m long from north to south and a maximum of 425 m from east to west.

Head- and tailwaters

Roughly north of the town of Bramsche an artificial channel branches off the

that takes water from the south for about 4.5 km to the lakes of the Alfsee. The water draining from the Alfsee runs over a similar artificial drainage channel, about 1.3 km long, directly west of the reserve basin north of the Alfsee, where it flows along the 2.5 km long canalised lower reaches of the Ueffelner Aue, which passes the Alfsee to the west running in a south to north direction west of Alfhausen, before flowing back into the Hase.

History

Construction on the Alfsee began in 1971. From 1976 a holiday park was built on the eastern shore within the parish of

. Today this has holiday homes, several

campsite A campsite, also known as a campground or camping pitch, is a place used for camping, overnight stay in an outdoor area. In British English, a ''campsite'' is an area, usually divided into a number of pitches, where people can camp overnight u ...

s and sports pitches as well as a boating harbour with a

sailing Sailing employs the wind—acting on sails, wingsails or kites—to propel a craft on the surface of the ''water'' ( sailing ship, sailboat, raft, windsurfer, or kitesurfer), on ''ice'' ( iceboat) or on ''land'' ( land yacht) over a chose ...

school and a

waterskiing Water skiing (also waterskiing or water-skiing) is a surface water sport in which an individual is pulled behind a boat or a cable ski installation over a body of water, skimming the surface on two skis or one ski. The sport requires suffici ...

area. As well as holiday makers and water sports enthusiasts, the Alfsee is popular with anglers, particularly because of the presence of

tench The tench or doctor fish (''Tinca tinca'') is a fresh- and brackish-water fish of the order Cypriniformes found throughout Eurasia from Western Europe including the British Isles east into Asia as far as the Ob and Yenisei Rivers. It is als ...

Transport links

The Alfsee, which is located southeast of

a few hundred metres east of the B 68, can be accessed from this federal road and from the Neuenkirchen-Vörden junction of the A 1 motorway that passes it to the east. The station at Rieste which is served hourly by trains from Bremen and Osnabrück is only about 1,800m from the Alfsee.

External links

Alfsee

Osnabrück (district) Reservoirs in Lower Saxony