Wooden harbour Billwerder Bucht, Hamburg New freshwater tidal flats due to dyke reclamation on the Elbe River

On an oxbow of the Dove Elbe east of the Norderelbe lies the Billwerder Bucht with the former timber port. It is bordered by the Kaltehofe peninsula to the north, Billwerder Island to the south and the Kaltehofe main dike to the west and the Moorfleeter dike to the east.

In the course of the expansion of the A 1 motorway bordering to the south, nature conservation compensatory measures were developed and implemented here, which extended the 60 ha wooden harbour by 20 ha to the southwest by means of back diking measures. The aim is to create tide-influenced freshwater mudflats that form a diverse habitat for flora and fauna, especially as a resting area for migratory bird species such as the spoonbill and shelduck, as a feeding, spawning and nursery area for fish and as a site for the hemlock water fennel, which is particularly worthy of protection in Hamburg.
Through extensive earthworks, the land formerly enclosed and raised by dikes was brought to the level of the Elbe and tideways were created mainly in a north-south direction, as well as the western shore areas were included in the tide-influenced zones by removing revetments. To shield it from the adjacent motorway to the south, a protective zone of reeds/floodplain forest was created.

Since March 2013, Holzhafen has been designated as the 32nd nature reserve in Hamburg and registered as an EU bird sanctuary with integration into the NATURA 2000 network of protected areas.

The office 'dpl' DITTLOFF PASCHBURG landscape architects Hamburg (formerly LINDENLAUB DITTLOFF landscape architects Hamburg) worked on the area-related, landscape planning part.

08|1995 Inventory of near-natural biotope types (Office Dr. Martens