Moving the Inde – A River on New Paths

"Panta rhei – everything flows" is written in old Greek letters on a boulder on the new bank of the Inde River at Eschweiler, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. This saying, which is ascribed to the philosopher Heraclitus, also describes the changes that the Rhine brown coal district has been subject to in recent decades. With the technical possibilities and the associated interventions into the man-made landscape, however, responsibility with regard to ecology has also grown significantly. RWE Power took its own responsibility in the region very serious when, for example, the company supported the move of the Inde River.

The Inde is the largest tributary of the Rur and belongs to the drainage area of the Meuse. It rises on the northern edge of the Hohes Venn in Belgium. After 44 kilometres it flows into the Rur at Jülich. At about five kilometres between two communities it flowed through the district of the Inden open cast mining. The mine would have reached the course of the river in autumn 2005 and would have disrupted it. Therefore, a permanent detour for the river had to be arranged in a timely manner on the side of the open cast mining area where dumping occurs and thus within the revegetation of the land. The Inde River had been regulated between 1957 and 1965. By moving it into its new, meandering bed, the river now has a higher quality - ecologically seen - than before.

In order to achieve the demanding ecological objectives, RWE Power invested around 24 million euros in the land revegetation project which is unique in Europe. After about eight years of construction, the Inde River started to flow in its new in the summer of 2005. Over 400,000 trees and bushes were planted to green up the bank of the "new" river; seven new bridges were built to cross the course of the river. To ensure that the new river course had a uniform low gradient was a particular engineering challenge. The new Inde riverbed was modelled on the old historical channel that could be reconstructed on the basis of maps, some of which dated back over 200 years.

By moving the Inde River, we have managed to create the foundations for an ecologically intact river landscape which is integrated it into the man-made landscape.