The river Saale runs through Halle from north to south and offers many opportunities for outdoor activities, relaxation and recreation for all residents. At the same time, the extensive area provides habitat for many animal and plant species and is therefore of great importance for the health of the local ecosystem and biodiversity. Also some particularly endangered species listed on the Red List found a habitat here.
Along the river there are many cycling and pedestrian paths. Many of them also run within nature reserves along the river and in the adjoining green areas. It is also due to these nature reserves that Halle has the largest share of green spaces within the city borders in Germany.
The protected areas are characterized by diverse alluvial forests, shrub vegetation and wetlands. These features are mainly due to the regular flooding typical of river floodplains. Below are some of the nine protected areas in the city of Halle listed and briefly described.
These protected areas serve as habitat for many birds, beetles and butterflies. But as a water protection area and equipped with several nature trails direct benefits for the residents Halles are easy to find in addition to the recovery function oft he area.
Image attributions
Left photo: By Catatine [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons (crop of original photo)
Remaining photos: By Jonatural [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons (crop of original photos)