The Saalbach is a stream in

North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia or North-Rhine/Westphalia, commonly shortened to NRW, is a States of Germany, state () in Old states of Germany, Western Germany. With more than 18 million inhabitants, it is the List of German states by population, most ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. It is 2.5 km long and a tributary of the Gelpe near

Remscheid Remscheid () is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is, after Wuppertal and Solingen, the third-largest municipality in Bergisches Land, being located on the northern edge of the region, on the south side of the Ruhr area. Remscheid ha ...

. The Saalbach lies within two

conservation area Protected areas or conservation areas are locations which receive protection because of their recognized natural or cultural values. Protected areas are those areas in which human presence or the exploitation of natural resources (e.g. firewoo ...

s and its source is protected as a

natural monument A natural monument is a natural or cultural feature of outstanding or unique value because of its inherent rarity, representative of aesthetic qualities, or cultural significance. They can be natural geological and geographical features such as w ...

Geography

Course

The Saalbach has two sources located in the west of the

Ronsdorf Ronsdorf is a district of the Germany, German city of Wuppertal. It has a population of about 22,500. Ronsdorf was first mentioned in 1494, and in 1745 it received its town charter. It was founded a few years earlier by Elias Eller when he relocated ...

district in southeast

Wuppertal Wuppertal (; ) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, in western Germany, with a population of 355,000. Wuppertal is the seventh-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia and List of cities in Germany by population, 17th-largest in Germany. It ...

, with an elevation of . Luftbild Ronsdorfer Talsperre 1

After a few hundred metres, the streem feeds into the Ronsdorf

reservoir A reservoir (; ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam, usually built to water storage, store fresh water, often doubling for hydroelectric power generation. Reservoirs are created by controlling a watercourse that drains an existing body of wa ...

. Below the reservoir's dam it flows through several pools, constructed to harness water power from the dam for mills which are no longer in operation. Flowing from the northeast, it merges with the Gelpe river near the "Haus Zillertal" restaurant, at an elevation of . The Saalbach ends approximately below its source, resulting in an average slope of about 4.5%.

Tributaries

#Saalsiefen (''right''), 0.1 km #Wüstenacker Siefen (''right''), 0.2 km # Heusiepen (''left''), 1.3 km, 0.7 km #Holthauser Gemark Siefen (''right''), 0.2 km #Zillertaler Siefen (Zillertaler Siepen) (''left''), 0.2 km

Built environment and historical structures

The Saalbach has formed the city boundary between Wuppertal and Remscheid since 1929, previously forming the boundary of Ronsdorf and

Lüttringhausen Lüttringhausen is a district of the German town of Remscheid with a population of 17,857 in 2005; 11,829 in 1905; 13,560, mostly Protestant, in 1910. Overview It was founded around the year 1189. At this time, Lüttringhausen belonged to the Coun ...

when these districts were still cities in their own right. The most significant engineering structure on the stream is the Ronsdorfer Dam (''Ronsdorfer Talsperre'', also known as the ''Saalbachtalsperre'') which was built between 1898 and 1899 to supply drinking water. Along the lower course of the stream, several metalworking

hammer mill A hammer mill, hammer forge or hammer works was a workshop in the pre-industrial era that was typically used to manufacture semi-finished, wrought iron products or, sometimes, finished agricultural or mining tools, or military weapons. The featur ...

s were once located, although today, only the ponds remain. The most notable of these, located at the confluence with the Gelpe, was called the ''Hundsschüppe''. Other facilities included the ''Hordenbachshammer'', ''Roodekotten'', and ''Manneshammer''. An industrial history trail which opened in 1980 in the Gelpe-Saalbach conservation area includes information boards about the sites.

References

External links