VEGETATION DEVELOPMENT IN THE SPREEWALD AND ITS VALUATION IN POINT OF NATURE CONSERVATION

vegetation, water balance Vegetation development in the Spreewald was modelled from eco-hydrological ampli-tudes of vegetation types. Sites with a changing soil moisture and summer-dry sites will increase due to global change, especially at the edge of the Spreewald and in the region supplying the “Großes Fließ”. Subsequently vegetation types like wet mead-ows and alder swamp forests will go down and invasions by neophytes are more likely. We developed a method for ecological risk assessment. It enables stake-holders to consider and optimise alternative strategies of acting. Results: In the framework of GLOWA-Elbe we developed a vegetation development model for the Spreewald (VEGMOS). At first the mapped biotope types (LAGS 1996) in the whole area were characterised by typical vegetation and hydrotope types well-founded on existing vegetation data (1000 relevés). The model uses the conception of vegetation forms by Koska et al. (2001) which is valid for the north-eastern low