THEORETICAL NATURAL TERRAIN AND ACTUAL NATURAL AREA, USING NORTHWESTERN LOWER SAXONY AS AN EXAMPLE

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• Publication Date: November 1, 1956
• Content Type: REPORT

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"TEGARTTICAL NATURAL TERRAIN" AND "ACTUAL NATURAL fRTW," USING
NORTHWESTERN LOWER SAXONI AS AN EXAMPLE
Berichte sur Deutaoher Landeekunde G. Niemeier,
lReports on tJw Geography o Brunswick
Germany'], Vol 16, No 1,
January 1956, Remagen,
'ages 59-68
1. The Problem
Over a period of decades, the concept of geographical terrain
has been largely defined. Likewise, the concepts "natural terrain"
and "cultural terrain" have become well defined, the former as a
complex of physiogeographical and biogeographical elements and
factors, not significantly affected by anthropogenic factors, and
the latter pertaining to significant transformation and modifi-
cation of an area by human activity (12). Members of the West German
Geographical Society have been primarily responsible for a further
clarification of the concept of "terrain," which has come to mean
the totality of a portion of the earth's surface, insofar as it may?
be conceived of in standard terms, while the extent of particular
terrain components or portions of the complex is designated by the
term "region," "district," "area," etc (12). Thus, we use the term
terrain within, the boundaries determining its extent, without con-
sideration of the phenomena of human culture. Thus, in anthro-
pogenically-determined spaces, one may speak of units, structures,
or components having to do with natural area, economic area, or
social area, etc, each of which constitute no more than an element
or constituent of a territory. However, if terms such as "natural
teri"n," "cultural terrain," "rice-growing terrain," etc., are used,
 reference is made to the totality of the characteristic featurez
of the terrain, the adjective being used only to indicate dominant
phenomena (1).
"composition of a natural area," etc, in terrains highly affected
by human activity, is understood a reconstruction of the natural
area as it would appear if human beings had not been present, or
the natural geography as it presently exists, with its long-term
man-created effects on the soil, hydrography, botany, etc. Here
are 2 examples among many. One geographer asks ((): "How would
the present terrain, under existing natural conditions, appear,
if man had not affected it in any way?", to which ho ?nJs.
explicitly: "Han and his works must be left out of RJ;.,.LL* -t.?_fl."
On the other hand, another says: "It is not possible, and, in any
case, of little value, to disregard such natural and human in-
fluences and ... , in the classification of natural areas, to
base ourselves solely on primeval conditions. Natural conditions
and those created by cultures and techniques are so closely
intertwined as to make an artificial separation impossible.
Therefore, it is not only permissible, but essential, to take the
existing conditions as the point of departure" (6).
Both approaches are meaningful and justified. It is evident,
however, that the reconstruction of a theoretical natural terrain
involves many more hypothetical considerations than does the e..iet-
ing natural area, which is capable of direct observation. As the
effects of human activity upon the natural area go back thousands
of years in some cases, and as they enter early into what is often
a highly complex series of causes and effects, the reconstruction
 of a fictional natural terrain must, in aazor portions of the earth,
involve so many unknowns as to be reduced to nothing more than an
intellectual exercise.
The difference between the natural geography of a given
terrain as affected by man and that of the same area freed of
anthropogenic influences and restored to its "theoretical" state,
.is often slight, however, or at least this would appear to be the
case. Can the two be harmonized?
We shall attempt to investigate this problem by using north-
west Lower Saxony as an example. The exceptionally fine cartographic
material available for coastal Lower Saxony (17, 18) provides a
substantial basis for reconstruction of the "theoretical" topography
of the natural area to produce a natural terrain unaffected by man.
The characteristic features of the topography of this natural area,
and of its genesis, must be assumed to be familiar, so that the
problem may be reduced to the question at issue.
II. The "Theoretical" Natural Terrain of Northwest Lower Saxony
We pose, first, the question as to how the land would have
appeared if man had not brought his influence to bear on the nat-
ural geography of the area. Chart 1 gives the answer in a broad,
basic outline.
Let us begin with the coast and marshlands. The mean sea
level, the datum level of the official topographical charts, is
at least one m, and often more than li a below the mean highwater
level (HTm+-Fl.). This means that, if not for the building of
dikes since about, 1000 A.D., the marshes would be covered with
salt water twice a day, while the highest sea level in storms
would cover all land up to the 3~ m mark, or, more likely, up
 to the 5-a isohypse, indicated in Figure 1 by the horizontal
hatching. East Friesland would be a narrow peninsula, less than
30 km wide, in spots, less than 15 ka wide. It cannot definitely
be determined whether today's marshlands would be sand and mudflata
or whether, in part, they would be swampy nor whether high storm
tides would have shaped the flats and coastline differently.
Anyone who would find pleasure in it is entitled to epeculate as
to what the amplitude of the tide would be in the courses of the
Weser and Ems hivers, as they would exist under these circumstances.
The original settlement of the undiked marshlands, ascribed to the
Iron Age, would not have affected the coastline as shown, as the
sinking of the coast, which today is perhaps ending, was then in
progress (16). The edge of the marshes is to be sought as a false
channel up to about a meter over mean high water in the storm tide
area. The marshes would not have taken the form of rich fresh-
water meadows and pastures, such as exist today, but would have
consisted primarily of salt-grass meadows. The dense network of
drainage ditches in the marshlands of today would of course have
been absent. The natural terrain would not be significantly
affected if allowance be made for settlement in the marshes due
to diking and drainage (2, 3).
In a series of studies Wildvang (15) has convincingly
demonstrated that settlement of the low boglands took place, in
part, in prehistoric and early historic times, with the result
that they, and the edpes of the high boglanda, had undergone narked
changes over long centuries. The settled strip from Gateel-..arienhafe
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.u a point upstream from Neermoor (near Leer), like other settlements
on the edge of the land above sea level, lies on the edge of marsh-
lands raised by the heaping up of sand for protection against the
encroaching North Sea. The broad low boglands of the Aurich plain
above sea level have been highly eroded. Their arable soils are
hardly to be distinguished from the bogfree land above sea level,
revealing merely (except for occasional residual areas of i:eat) a
slightly higher humus content than the "pure" seacoast soils (10%.
by comparison to about 3%). It took incredible labors on the part
of man to become a factor in nature. Without man's thousand years
of work, not only would today's marshland meadows still be alder
bogs, but the high marshes, growing both in height and width,
would have by now to cover much larger areas. It is impossible
to determine how large they would be by now, so that the chart of
the theoretical natural terrain must depict all types of marshland
as one. All the low country is now, and has long been, drained
land covered with a network of canals and ditches, as is splendidly
depicted in the corresponding charts in the Lower Saxony atlas.
Plant communities and soil types are particularly good indicators
of the topography of an area, and pcrmit reconstruction of the
theoretical natural terrain with a high degree of confidence. The
dry portions of the land above sea level are now covered with oak
and birch woods, while moist portions are covered with the wet-
land varieties of these trees or with bogs. Only on the better
soils, consisting of boulder clay with clayey to clayey-sandy soils
and loose sands and clays, are sour-soil oak-and-hornbeam woods
found to predominate.
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 Would those types of plant communities return everywhere if
mar, were w lL'.-_,1 ear: n0* rtlt ,. tritSU iac:raa...w rIts a'esul~ a..e
soil degradation, this is most improbable. Thus, on the sandy land
above sea level where moor soils have appeared in the place of
"rust-colored forest soils," only heath vegetation and stunted trees
are able to grow, due to the layer of bog iron (see bog-iron soils
in Figure 2). All the soil types in longeettled areas may be assumed
to have been significantly affected by human economies, so that
present-day soil science has begun to treat of man as a more im-
portant soil-forming factor than was hitherto believed to be the
case.
With this we may conclude our consideration of theoretical
natural terrain, as it has already become amply clear that it is
fictional and can hardly be regarded as of practical significance.
Geographic regional and area studies and regional planning must
deal with those realities of the natural area which are subject
to direct, on-the-spot observation. Moreover, it must be stated
that the maintenance and improvement of the conditions actually
existing in the natural area are among the most important problems
of regional planning and agricultural engineering. That this is
clear is illustrated by the diked marshlands, with their great
problems of diking and drainage: land which does not exist at all
in the "theoretical" sense. The study of the theoretical natural
area requires the use primarily of a deductive method, while the
real natural area must certainly be studied by inductive reasoning
based on observations on the spot.
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in. The Actual Natural Area of Northwest Lower Saxot'
The permanent changes produced by man must be given prime
Most of the marshland is below the mean highwater level,
and is protected from regular salt-water flooding by dikes 7 to
8 m high. The groundwater level is therefore high, and the impreg-
nation of the soil with moisture is considerable. Only when the
tide brings the sea level below that of the marshlands is it possible
for the water in the innumerable drainage ditches to flow off through
the levees. It has only been quite recently that, as at Emden,
powerful pumping installations have been erected -- installations
capable of rejecting the excess water past the dikes during long
periods of high water. Time and human activities have caused the
settling of the marshes to be reflected in relief, hydrography,
and ecology. Wherever subsurface bog layers are thick, but in any
case to a greater degree in the old marshlands at the edge of the
geest than in the younger marshes, settlement is more marked. The
consequences are that drainage is more difficult; the soil often
undergoes a mild degree of wet bleaching in a band extending in
width from a few hundred meters to over 10 km in front of the Fast
Friesland plain (18); and in many places the groundwater comes to
the surface in the form of "lakes," some of which are maintained
as natural reservoirs, although recently this has occurred as a
result of the building of the dikes, and of the settling of the
land. As a result, the older marshes are distinguished from the
younger by a higher proportion of cultivable land than the younger.
Today's outer dike line is the outcome of the struggle between
breaks caused by storm tides and man as dike-builder, wringing the
 _and from th? an polder by polder. The "spare dikes," which
are often 'nibbled at" as supplies of earth when needed elsewhere,
and the numerous mounds for individual farayards and villages,
which may extend for many kilometers and represent unique types
of zones both of habitation and of vegetation, constitute a type
of human ornamentation of the marshland which, while relatively
small in area, is nevertheless subject to slow modification, if
any. The changes in the hydrography and the vegetative geography
of the marshland by anthropogenic factors has been discussed, above.
It may be stated with confidence that, if not for man, the marsh-
land as a natural area would be entirely different than it is today
not only ecologically, but in its contours, boundaries, and topo-
graphy., In a word, the theoretical natural terrain would be entire-
ly different from the actual natural area, and in fact would, for
forming a false channel, the depth and extent of which are markedly
effected by man (through dredging) in interrelation with natural
forces.,
But even the geest (which, in the popular vocabulary, repre-
sents all sandy land that is, relatively, dry, and high, if only
a few handbreadths above the moist surroundings) is affected by
permanent human transformations of the natural endowment of the
area. Improvements in the physical geographical environment
cause' substantial resistance to degradation.
In the western portion of the Aurich geest plain, the improve-
--ants consist primarily of the elimination of many, many square
rilometers of shallow bog cover, muck and soil by drainage or mixing
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geest soils, these anthropogenic geest soils contain more humus
and an excessively high groundwater level, which requires drainage
is most cases. Local conditions vary from place to place with the
slightest differences in mieroreliet and soil (sand, loamy till,
and, occasionally, clay). The natural meadows lie high, also out-
side the limits of the subsidence of the bog meadows. The situation
chiefly answers the requirements of a moist oak-and-birch woodland,
except where there are alder-quakes, swampy heath, or, in the
occasional high spots, dry oak and birch woods. In districts where
the Last Friesland geest is more deeply dissected -- the northeast
and the kmmerland, where interlaced dissection due to parallel
channels on the interfluves has created dry spots, with rust- colored
forest and heath soils -- dry oak-and-birch forests and Calluna
heath with stunted forest would exist if not for the fact that they
are largely under the plough and have become metamorphosed by
superimposition thick layers of turfy soil.
The0Huemmling and Cloppenburg geests are relatively and
absolutely higher than that discussed above. The Hueminling soil
is poorer than that of the geest further eastward, perhaps because
the soil substrata had from the outset, and with the intermixture
of poor tertiary sands in the till, offered little of nutritive
value. Dominant in this area are markedly bleached rusty forest
soils with dry oak and birch forests (now often pine)) and,
primarily, heath soils with hardpan. Loose sandy soils are much
more valuable, but in this area the addition of a loamy component
to the loose sandy soils produces even better spots. Thus, in
this area one finds brown forest soils, weak to highly podsolised
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 standing water over loamy soils, wet forest soils. These conditions
would result in variants of oak-hornbeam woods but for the fact
that the good soils that we are discussing have for the most part
been broken by the plough. This also holds for other loose sandy
soil districts (on the slope of the Dammer Hills and the Ankumer
Heights). The Dammer Hills consist chiefly of dry geest with
oak and birch woods on rusty forest soils, tending, in spots, as
do other portions of the dry geest, to form dune and drifting sands.
Our Figures depict heath soils with hardpan separately. In
the form of small islands they extend over larger areas than the
charts are able to show. Their extent is greatest ~.a.:'y
soils of the Meppen-Nienburg geest and at the foot of the '. .m r
Hills. They also appear in the hollows of old sand dunes and on
genet islands, or terraces, near rivers, at points where the ground-
water is somewhat lower. Doubtless, they were produced by wasteful
plundering of the woods and pasture on the onetime extensive common
lands. Primarily, however, they are the negative handmaidens of
the creation of turfy soil, for the benefit of which, for may
centuries, and perhaps as long as 2,000 years, the humus surface
substance has been taken in the form of soda transferred to culti-
vated fields via the atolls of livestock. Students of plant
communities believe that they see in the strata at the L level
below the hardpan the profile of the one-time oak and birch forests.
One hectare of land under long cultivation with manured turf
fertiliser requires 5 to 20 times its area as turf source in the
heath. It is little wonder, then, that the layer of bleached sand
over the hardpan often displays a disproportionate relationship to
the zones of enriched soil in the B horizon which often contain
 20 to 30 am of iron-rich humus-containing hardpan, while the
layers of bleached sand have often been stripped down, by the
removal of turfs, to less than 15, and even to 5, cm thickness.
As a result, this layer is often so thin as to be incapable of
furnishing a my iron and humus to the B stratum. Here only heath
and stunted trees are now able to thrive, while 60 to 80-year-old
pine plantings have hardly been able to emerge above the stage of
stunted growth and "young" copses, because the hardpan has limited
the root growth downward. Here we see an extensive, long-term
anthropogenic degradation of the soil, which can be reversed only
by deep ploughing to break up the hardpan and by afforestation in
accordance with local conditions, or by conversion to ploughland by
high outlays of fertilizer and capital, which is usually unjusti-
fied. Pine plantings alone accomplish nothing.
meadows, too, are often highly affected by the results of human
activity, not only by control over tidal flooding and drainage and
irrigation, but also, in spots, by anthropogenically-caused cover-
ing of the flood-plain forests and meadows, which have been raised
2 to 21 m during the last thousand years (7). Like the mucky low
meadows, these areas have also undergone levelling (also often by
removal of sod). Alder brakes have, for the most part, been
converted to grasslands. In the flood plains the nutritive elements
in the soil are more abundant, except where the water is stagnant.
The manner in which man has affected the life of the bogs
has been described briefly above. Here only a few illustrations
are needed. Comparison of Chart 2 with the map of the present
state of the region (No. 21 in Source 15) shows how extensive the
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 changes have been even in the high moors. Those of the Ammerland,
those southeast of Jadebusen, and large portions of other high
moorland districts, have disappeared to a considerable degree.
That is, they have been stripped, even if by no means always down
to the underlying sand, and converted to cropland. There is no
need hers to go into the various types of high moor cultures.
However, it must be emphasized that these anthropogenic changes,
unlike those of the low bogs and muck country, are very recent.
Throughout medieval times, the high moors were a no man's land,
i. e., a wilderness dangerous to man. It took the stimulating
example offered by our neighbors in the Netherlands to demonstrate
tha value of the upland moors and the methods of taming them. The
clearing of the moor was begun in the thirteenth Century in the
bishopric of Utrecht, while the fourteenth century saw the found-
ing of moorland settlements in Overijssel and neighboring Drenthe.
The bog colonies of Droning began to flower only in 1626, and in
a few years were taken as the example on which the East Friesland
developments, and the settlements near the border fortress of
Papenburg of the Munster bishopric and the Bourtanger Moor (11, 14)
were based. From then onward there was constant extension of
plantings on moorlands cleared by burning, accompanied by superficial
drainage. Moorland colonies were also founded. However, the effect
of these efforts in transforming nature were slight in comparison
to those effected by the bog colonies.
For the individual farmer to make headway against the moor
is out of the question. It requires large capital outlays, primarily
for the initial digging of the major drainage canals. For this
reason it was urban capitalists who first ventured capital in the
moor. in East Friesland it was 4 men of Emden who founded Crossefehn
in 1633, originally to obtain peat in this wood-poor and therefore
fuel-poor lowland. They were less concerned with winning new
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farmlands. The edict on land clearance issued by Frederick the
Great in 1765 declared all moot moorlands to be government props-ty.
From approximately 1770 on this led to many new settlements being
formed on the government's initiative, so that by 1869 there were
no less than 83 moor colonies on East Friesland.
Colonization of all the upland moors advanced further during
the nineteenth (i. a., the founding of New Arenberg in 1809 and
1826-27, that of Neuscharrel in Oldenburg about 1821) for the most
part under government guidance and planning (e. g., the founding
of the model colony of Marcardsmoor by the provincial government
of Hannover in 1890, and in 1908 that of the Central Power Plant
at Wiesmoor). Our century has seen primarily the application of
the German methods of cultivating the upland moors. Today, how-
ever, the remaining upland moors, often 6 to 6 m, and in the
Bourtanger Moor, up to 14 m thick, are barren, as a result of
drainage.
The largest massif of upland moor is the Bourtanger, the
German portion of which covers some hO,U00 ha. There may have
been close to 50,000 ha of moor in the Hnnte-Leda lowland.
Moorland statistics are necessarily inexact, without soil surveys,
particularly as it is difficult to classify, statistically, the
transition areas between moors and mucky soils. In Aurich County,
moor covers about } of the total area, and in that of Oldenburg
exactly 115. The area under our consideration has more moorland
than any other in Central Europe.
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The last of the natural. area coaD2venta highly modified
by man that we shall examine are the old cultivated areas, which
in Western Germany, are generally manured-turf-sodded soils (9).
They are found not only on homesteads and squatter farms, consti-
tuting the long-cultivated ploughlands of the small settled com-
munities, but also in the long-cultivated lands of village farmlands
in solid blocks, as well as in enclosed isolated farms and even
on the farm laborers' patches. Only in the decade before the war
was fuller knowledge of these soils obtained, and the types more
clearly delineated. The surveys for the Lower Saxony soil atlas
contributed significantly in this respect, but its distribution
as shown therein is merely a reflection of the prior knowledge
in the field, and therefore inadequate. Thus while our Chart 2
presents a general picture of the distribution of manured-turf-
compost soils, it shows none in districts where they have recently
been discovered. These include the Aurich geest plains, where
they are found in the mucklands, and on the loose sandy soils of
the Cloppenburger geest (where I have often found layers of manured-
turf-compost soils up to 60 cm thick in random samplings; it has
also been found in the flottlehm -- soil intermediate between
loess and wind-transported sand -- of the Hoyaer geest, and this
is shown in the soil atlas). Manured-turf-compost is found over
all types and classes of soil, except for upland moors and, perhaps,
the Gilt of the marshlands. Its distribution shows a relationship
to the ancient pattern of settlement, for in places where conti-
nuous or dispersed settlements had not come into being until the
middle of the past century, and the farmers had lived in small
homesteads, manured-turf compost soils had been limited pria&ri?y
to the appurtenant homestead ploughlands and to small adjacent
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enclosed fields. This is the case in Fffmmling. In areas of
dispersed settlements, manured-turf-compost soils are found outside
the homesteads in broad dispersal on the ploughed enclosures (this
being the case in central and southern Oldenburg, and in the northern
portion of the Hoer geest). Most of the manured-turf compost-
enriched soils found in the area under study are on rust-colored
forest and heath soils, although in spots they have been laid down
over hardpan. The creation of the humus horizon represents an
enormous amount of labor, which probably took 1} to 2 thousand
years in the fields longest under cultivation. The humus horizon
is not more than 50 to 100 cm thick, although greater thicknesses
are not uncommon. They represent an artificially-created area of
plant growth, the soil rating of which is substantially higher than
that of the adjacent forest and heath soils. In the "theoretical
natural terrain," however, the soil rating for manured-turf compost-
enriched soil and for the areas from which the sod had been stripped
would be approximately the same. If the former were left at the
mercy of the forces of nature, it is probable that the forest,
vegetation of the locality in its virgin state would take over,
in its "better" varieties.
The long-term changes wrought in the natural state of the
area by turf-stripping farming may be seen in many thousands of
hectares of land, whether this be the stripped land, with its
degradation of the "natural" soil known to every farmer, or whether
it be manured-turf, compost-enriched soil, constituting an
artifieia]ly-created, new area of cultivation with improved humus
content, friability, and drugs in the wator economy of the soil, etc.
 tie .r.a+ae...e w ..1u aeiamral rebstancos alo.ae removed with the
torts aq is ease tw some stM,.:s rough calculation. It one
eer.re mat tare grossed level has been raised by an average of only
!. ^s, tree a sar:e farm of only 6.) ac -f arable land requires
t'a w_tare( of ? ,jjj 03 of .meth= and a tiny homestead settlement
vt try ' tatty, ,sving A.) ac each, involves the transfer of
?S,A.0. el ,.f sartn. Thu vans that in the area under discussion,
*.one, osny millions of cubic meters of earth, here degrading the
soil and there isifrvvini it, nave been savedl As a result, banks
forted by high water nave been levelled extensively by turf-stripping,
terrace rims have boon straightened, terraces containing arable have
been raised and smoothed, so that the relief itself has been affected.
The areas stripped of turf have often been converted to shifting
sands, which still exist, and which it in difficult to fix by forest-
ation.
However, all the foregoing are anthropogenically-conditioned
changes in nature, changes difficult to reverse, which would remain
for a long period and, in part, ;.ermanently even if nun withdrew
from the area and a new "natural terrain" thereby came into existence.
These factors are effective and of significance in area studies and
All areas of farting, including, in the broader meaning,
those where the land is merely despoiled, show directly or indi-
rectly the effects of human efforts, among them long lasting
changes in actual nature. Think, for example, of tin flood-deposited
sedimentary cover in many flood plains as the result of coloniastiun
of upriver areas in many places other than northwest Germany, of tnu
often devastating long-time results of soil erosion, such as the
 Medlterranean, or the dust storms subsequent to destruction of
the natural vegetative cover which resulted from putting the
Great Plains of the LISA to the plough. In the latter came alone,
important portions of the humus horizon of the topsoil were lost.
Or think of the change in vegetation caused merely by scratch-and-
move agriculture0on the`eavannahs and steppelands of the earth.
Examples such as these may be multiplied by the hundred.
It would thus seem to be established that "actual natural
0
area" is a concept of greater scientific and practical significance
that any "theoretical natural terrain," which is often incapable
0
in any case of being reconstructed with any certainty in important
1. Bobek, H., and Schmithuesen, J.,,"Terrain in the Logical System-
matics of Geography," Erdkunde [Geographyj, Vol 3, 2/2, 1949,
0
2. Dewers, F., "Diluvium and Alluvium," Geologic and Lagerstaetten
0
Niedersachsen (The Geology and Mineral Deposits of Lower
0
3. Dewera, F., "Geological-Morphological Maps of Lower Saxony
(with text :y X. Bruening), Archivf. Landes-u. Volkskunde
v. Niedersachsen (Archive of the Regional, Geography and
Culture of Lower Saxony], 1942, 11
4. Dienemann, W., "Valley Sands in the Transverse Valley of the
Hunte through the Nienburg-Meppen Geest," Abh. d. Naturwiss.
Ver. Bremen (Transactions of the Icemen Scientific Society),
Vol 30, 1937
 5? )irbas, Frans, bpaet - and nacheisseitliche Waldgeschiohte
Mitteleuropas n$erdlich der Alpen [History of the Forest
of Central Europe North of the Alps in the Late Glacial
and Postglacial Periods), Vol 1, Allgeaeine Waldgeschichte
(General History of the Forestal, 1949, Jena, Fischer
6. Lehmann, Herbert, "Structure of the Landscape of the Oldenburg-
Ostfriesland Geest Ridge and the Hunte-Leda Lowland. A
Contribution to the Method of Developing a Conception of
Landscape Units," Bar. s, dr. Landeskunde (Reports on the
Regional Geography of Germany), Vol 8, 2, 1950, pages 324-339
7. 24ensching, H., "Accumulation and Erosion by the Rivera of
Lower Saxony since the Riss ict - !.r kinds (Geographyjp
Vol 5, 1, 1951, pages 60-70
8. Mueller-Wille, Wilhelm, "The Natural Terrains of Westphalia,
An Attempt at a Classification based on Relief, S'.sface
Waters, Climate, Soils and Vegetation," Westfaal Forschgn.
['Westphalian hesearchj, Vol 5, 1-2, 1942, pages 1-78
9. Niemeier, G., and Taschenracher, W., ".lanured Turf Compost
Soil. A Contribution to the Genetics and T; )logy Thereof,"
Westfll. Forschgn. , II, 1, 1939
10. Overbeck, F., "Findings to Date in Botanical Studies of the
Boglands as They bhed Light on the Sinking of the German
North Sea Coast," Abh. d. Naturwiss. Ver. 5rerwn, Vol 29, 1929
11. Pfeiffer, Gerhard, "The Feginnings of Settlement on the Ems
River Boglands. Fundamentals of the History of the Post-
medieval settlement of Northwest Germany.." P11, f. dt. Landes-
gvsch. (Papers on the History of the German Provinces,
87, 1942, pages 15-32
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12. Schmithuesen, Josef, The 'Building Blocks' of a Landscape
and Its 'Ecotopics'," Bar. s. dt. Landeskunde (Reports
on the Regional Geography of Germany], Vol 5, 1947, pages
74-e3. of. also the introduction to the Handb1ch der
naturra-1ichen Oliederung Deutachlands (Handbook on the
Classification of Germany by Natural Units), Part 1, 1953,
Remagen
13. Schultze, J. H., Die Naturbedi ten Landschaften der DDR
[The Nature-Determined Landscapes of the German Democratic
Republic], 1955, Gotha
14. Westerhoff, August, "The Upland Moors of Last Friesland and
Oldenburg. The Development of Their Pattern of Terrain
and Settlement," second edition, Oldenburg, Stalling, 1936,
Schrif tear. d. Wirtachaftswiss. Gen. s. Stadium Niedersachsen,
R. A., No 36
15. Wildvang, Dodo, Die Geologie Ostfrieslands (The Geology of
East Friesland), 1938, Berlin, Prussian Provincial Bureau
of Geology, in Abh. d. Preusa. Geol. Landesanst. N. F. 181
[Transactions of the Prussian Provincial Bureau of Ceology.
New Series. 181)
16. Woldstedt, Paul, Norddeutschland and angrensende Goblets in
Bisseitalter [North Germany and Its Adjacent Territories
Luring the Ice Age], 1950, Stuttgart, Koehler, in the
series Geogr. Handbiieoher [Geographical Handbooks)
17. Bruening, Kurt, Atlas Niedersachsen (Lover Saxony Atlas].
Population, Economy, Transport, Nature, and History of
the Province of Lower Saxony, Bremen, Dorn, 1950, in
series Dt. Planungsatlas (German Planning Atlases), Vol 2
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 16. Bodenkundliehar Atlas von Niedersachsen (Soil Atlas of
Lower 5axozW), scale 1:100,000. Containing basic data
for classification of areas and regional planning,
Ludwig Cesaner, editor, 3 volumes, Oldenburg, Stalling,
1937-1940, T. A - C., in series Wirtachaftsviaa. Gen. z
Studium Niedsrsachsenes e. V. Veraotf. it. C. hartenwerke
[Press of the Society for Social Studies of Lower Saxony,
Inc.], Vol 16; cf. also in the same source, Wasaerwirtachafts-
atlas (Atlas of Water Economy]
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FIGURE CAPTION
Figure (opposite page 614, original].
Theoretical natural terrain: hypothetical representation of the
natural state of northwest Lower Saxorp if man had not made his
presence felt.
The coasts indicate the approximate coastline at mean high
tide in the absence of the dikes, but without consideration of the
probable, but nondeterminable changes that have occurred. Place
names are provided for orientation. Shape and position of islands
cannot be reconstructed for the period in question.
Upland and lowland moors, boglands, muck lands.
Lowland moors and alder brakes.
Primarily oak and birch woods, chiefly on poor (rusty-brown),
sandy geest soils.
Oak-and-hornbeam woods in the lowlands, chiefly on acidiphilic
silicate soils (ground moraines and loose sand).
Areas which would be covered by storm tides, and probably
silted over, on the basis of the topography of the present day.
Up to about one meter over mean high tide (-2 a over mean
sea level)t presumptive marshes (false channels). Sources:
Atlas Niedersachsen [Atlas of Lower Saxony), 1950; Bodenkundlicher
Atlas von Niedersachsen, (Soil Atlas of Lower Saxony).
Figure [opposite page 65, original].
Actual natural area: major natural features of northwestern Lover
Saxony, with consideration of long-term anthropogenic changes.
Sea and river marshes: diked, chiefly below mean high tide
level; marsh-marine humus and clay soil, mineral wet soils with
fresh water, extensive drainage systems; soil ratings between 56
 and 59 (chiefly rood pl'3ushJands and V e" goal rich pasture &no,
meadows).
0068t: Chiefly sandy and loose sandy soils. Anthropogenic
changes: improvement by asmured turf compost, while fields long
under the plough have acquired humous friable soil 60 to 110 cm
thick (soil ratings often between 26 and Si, but 52 to 64 on loose
sand and loam); degradation due to turf-stripping (removal of the
high-humus friable soil and part of the layer of bleached sand;
soil ratings between 1 and 25), and conversion of the oak-and-birch
forests to heath with heath soils resulting.
Heath soils with hardpan (soil ratings well below 16).
Mineral wet soils in river valleys and sandy valley floors
with high groundwater level, the foregoing derived fromt alder brakes
and lowland moors or mucklands; frequently planed and improved.' On
sandy clay (the Ems upstream from above Haren, and parts of the made
land) the"soil ratings are often 38-51 (this being the case, for
example, with manured-turf-compost soils), while on ploughland and
good grasslands (up to 57 along the lows, up to'69 in spots, at
Aschendorf), and 25 to 40 on moderate grasslands.
High moors: the natural state of all such lands has been
changed by drainage, their level largely reduced by removal of the
soil, and in places complete levelling thereby. Drainage has
values. Soil ratings of today's upland moors are. chiefly 10 to 27,
and not more than 28 to 41 in areas dug clear (bogland settlements).
Low moors, developed from silted-up areas rich in nutritive
elements, and covered with alder brakes, etc. A high degree of
drainage regulation, resulting in transformation of desirable meadow
lands (particularly in low ground and at the edge of the geest).
 Soil ratings chiefly between 25 and 41.
Muck and bog soilas in part resulting from the same
processes as the lowland moors, but in part developed from moist
oak-and-birch woods. Peat cover less than 25 cm thick, and, in
its absence, a mixture of mineralized, substrate (sand,. loam, etc.),
and sour humus (often simijzr to the mineralized wet soils).
Very marked anthropogenic changes on and near the geest (probably
at least 2,000 years old) by addition of sand, etc., culverts and
the like, thus'producing changes making it identical,with humus-,
geest soils. Soil ratings chiefly 25 to 41.
Manured-turf-compost soils: areas in cultivation from
ancient times; humus horizon usually increased by 40 to 100 cm,
primarily on sandy and loose sandy soils, but in some instances
on loam and sany loam, primarily relatively dry (on low, flat
elevations). Soil ratings vary with substratum, penetration of
moisture, etc., from 26 to 64. Conditions for vegetation complete-
ly changed by man. Boundaries not precise and not presented here
completely.
Sources: Niedersachsen Atlas, 1950; i:odenkundlicher Atlas
von Niedersachsen.