Quality of Spree

Noelle

Strolling along the Museum Island, resting at Treptower Park, or looking down in birds eye from the TV Tower, the Spree is the aquatic centerpiece of Berlin’s daily landscape. In the summer, children are paddleboarding, visitors splash their toes along the surface, boats lap the islands, and people sunbathe with cold drinks on the concrete shore. The river becomes an object upon which we gaze, one which we enjoy from the surface or a distance, with safe refuge from its chemical quality. Direct interaction with the river is lacking – on the hottest of summer days, the water is devoid of swimmers.
As opposed to many other major European urban rivers, Berlin’s Spree River has not had the restoration attention that it deserves. The water is polluted by sewage overflows, cyanobacteria blooms, pharmaceuticals, iron and sulfate from upstream mining, and it is largely channelized via concrete or buildings on each edge.
In other big European cities, like Zürich, Munich, and Basel, rivers are attractive places of
leisure, nature interaction, swimming (or even floating transportation to work). These cities
have all made active efforts in pollution remediation, expansion of river beds, as well as
process-restoration of the riparian environment. Alongside restoring ecological function, these cities have enhanced the economic value of this natural asset – since nature interactions improve the quality of life of city dwellers and visitors.
Berlin has a few budding initiatives to clean the water and renaturalize the shoreline. Ufer Frei has an annual Schwimm Demo near the HTW and Kaisersteg – quite the statement
demonstration if you dive into the pungent urban runoff, directly after a summer storm.
Flussbad Berlin is another proposal to clean a short section along the Museum Island, with the help of filtering aquatic plants and gravel.
A river of full-length swimmable quality would contribute to the sense of place, community
building, quality of life and health, and ecological status (which comes with co-benefits like
flood reduction) of Berlin. A river like the Spree that meanders and forks through many
neighborhoods is a blue ribbon that ties together the city in a powerful environmental solidarity and justice.
All five collaged photos show a hyperbolic state of the poor Spree quality as it is. They depict different spaces in Berlin where the water is accessible and enjoyed on a daily basis – and therefore spaces where it would be most beneficial to have water of swimmable standard.
The first image depicts the riverside at East Side Park, where people lounge on the concrete without touching the water, contaminated with trash and runoff.
The second image displays the idyllic meadow at the biergarten on the Southeast edge of the Insel der Jugend. Although a swim in refreshing water would match the sunny atmosphere, visitors have to enjoy the polluted water from afar.
The third collage is on the Northwest edge of the Insel der Jugend; the people similarly lounge on a dock, in bathing gear, but without the ability to swim.
The fourth image is the water at Rummelsburg Ufer, where residents of houseboats can anchor their motor boats to get to and from the shore. No one swims here either. The trash in the collage depicts the deplorable conditions.
The last image shows a renowned tourist spot in Berlin – the Spreetreppen. Although
infrastructure here has been built to allow access and interaction with the water, the steps
leading down to the water are used to sit and observe, rather than allow bathers to enter.

Sources:
Schade, Franziska Maria, and Franziska Maria Schade. “Baden in Der Spree in Berlin: Längst Keine Utopie Mehr.” Taz.De, 7 Aug. 2015, taz.de/Baden-in-der-Spree-in-Berlin/!5218609/. (Last Access: 18.07.24)
Zhengtao Ying; Doerthe Tetzlaff; Jonas Freymueller; Jean-Christophe Comte; Tobias
Goldhammer; Axel Schmidt; Chris Soulsby, et al. “The Spree River on a Drip.” IGB, 1 Dec.
2023, www.igb-berlin.de/en/news/spree-river-drip#:~:text=The%20Spree%20is%20mainly%20characterised,the%20urban%20Spree%20in%20Berlin. (Last Access: 18.07.24)

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