The groundwater in the district of Fürstenfeldbruck is becoming increasingly scarce - there is no improvement in sight

Created: 06/23/2022, 10:38 am

By: Tobias Gehre

The duck fountain in Puchheim-Ort no longer bubbles up.

Georg Schmid, who has been keeping the system in good shape for 40 years, is also powerless against this.

© Tobias Gehre

The groundwater is declining in many places in the district.

Several official measuring points report very low levels.

Nothing is likely to change in that regard any time soon.

County – The duck well is his baby.

For more than 40 years, Georg Schmid has been making sure that the fountains in Puchheim-Ort are reliably bubbling up.

But this year Schmid is powerless.

The duck often no longer spits out water.

The reason for this is the very low water level in nearby Gröbenbach.

The water, which is fed from the ground by water, normally drives the pump that feeds the water features via a mill wheel.

But the wheel has been turning only sporadically for weeks.

"There wasn't anything like that before," says Schmid.

And the misery is unlikely to change anytime soon.

In many places in the district, the groundwater level has fallen sharply.

The low water information service of the State Office for the Environment reports “very low” levels in Germering, in neighboring Gilching and in Mammendorf, for example.

Things don't look much better at many other measuring points in the region.

Too little rain in the last few months

Overall, it has simply rained too little in the past few months, explains Christian Leeb, head of the water management office responsible for the district.

Above all, flat land rain is in short supply.

Longer-lasting, not heavy rain would be very important for the formation of groundwater, from which drinking water is obtained.

Thunderstorms or showers would not contribute to this.

The ground cannot absorb the heavy rain in a short time.

The result: the wet flows on the surface into bodies of water - and is then gone.

Georg Schmid from Puchheim-Ort can also confirm this.

After a thunderstorm with a lot of rain, the duck fountain bubbles up again for a while because the Gröbenbach then has enough water to drive the pump.

Groundwater recharge will continue to decline

The situation will probably not improve.

"Models show that the formation of new groundwater will decrease by around ten percent in the next few years," says Christian Leeb from the Water Management Office.

You have to react to that.

That is why it is particularly important in municipalities to create areas where the water can seep away again.

The principle behind it is called sponge city.

As a result, rainwater that hits houses or sealed surfaces should no longer be drained into canals, but seeped away on site.

This principle was implemented, for example, in the recently completed forecourt of the community center in Emmering.

Christian Leeb is in favor of municipalities taking the idea into account in their land use planning in the future.

The water management office offers the town halls its support.