Germany finishes 60-year project turning coal mines into a 23-lake district

Story: 2026 C.E.  |  Last updated: April 29, 2026

After six decades of engineering work and roughly €7 billion in investment, Germany’s Lusatian Lakeland is complete — a chain of 23 human-made lakes covering 14,000 hectares where open-cast coal mines once scarred the earth between Berlin and Dresden. The final piece, Lake Sedlitz, opened for swimming and boating in April 2026 C.E., making the region the largest artificial water landscape in Europe.

At a glance

• Lusatian Lakeland: Twenty-three post-mining lakes now cover a total water surface of around 130 square kilometres — approaching the size of Italy’s Lake Como at 146 square kilometres.
• Lake Sedlitz: At 1,400 hectares, the newly opened lake is the largest recreational lake in the district, and was formerly the Ilse-Ost open-cast mine, which operated from 1938 to 1980.
• Coal mine restoration: The Lausitz and Central-German Mining Administration Company (LMBV) has managed reclamation across 19 open-cast mining areas since the early 1990s, with a further €4.8 billion in work expected over the next 25 years.

From crater to canal

The transformation began in 1967 C.E. with the flooding of Lake Senftenberg — a deliberate act of ecological repair in a region the East German Democratic Republic had stripped of more than two billion tonnes of lignite. Without intervention, those open-cast craters would have taken 80 to 100 years to fill naturally. Instead, engineers at an LMBV flooding centre in Senftenberg have spent over 25 years drawing water from the Neisse, Spree, and Schwarzer Elster rivers and channelling it into the pits.

The process is not simple. Each lake requires its own geotechnical work: embankments secured, mineral-laden groundwater managed, and inlet channels built to flush out acidic water before it can contaminate the lakes. Creating a single long-term safe lake costs between €200 and €600 million. “This is a process that will take two generations,” LMBV’s Dr. Uwe Steinhuber told Euronews Earth.

A milestone in June

On June 29, 2026 C.E., the district will mark its next landmark moment. Five lakes — Senftenberg, Geierswald, Partwitz, Sedlitz, and Großräschen — will be connected by navigable canals, forming a continuous water area of around 5,000 hectares. A traveler crossing all five lakes by boat would cover roughly 50 kilometres.

The newly built Ilse Canal, which links Lake Großräschen to the system, is a feat of its own: it runs under several railway lines and a main road. Four of the 13 planned navigable canals are now complete, and six more are under construction.

“The largest man-made water landscape in Europe is taking shape,” said Kathrin Winkler, Managing Director of the Lusatian Lakeland Tourism Association. “The opening marks an important step for the further development of water tourism.”

Jobs, tourism, and a model for coal regions

The lakes are already drawing visitors. In 2025 C.E., around 800,000 overnight stays were recorded in the region. The Czech market showed particular momentum, with 23,063 Czech overnight stays that year — up 12.7 percent on the prior year. The tourism association, which now counts more than 30 municipalities as members, has set a long-term goal of 1.5 million overnight stays per year, with Poland next in its sights.

New jobs in hospitality, leisure, and water sports have begun to replace mining work — including for former miners and their families. Winkler says Lusatia has a message for other coal-dependent regions: “The combination of comprehensive mining restoration, sustainable landscape design, and the targeted development of a tourism value-added cycle provides impetus for regions facing similar structural change.”

International exchanges have been ongoing since the International Building Exhibition of 2000–2010 C.E., and the region continues to host delegations from other countries grappling with post-industrial transition. The LMBV is developing around 50 large post-mining lakes across Germany, 24 of them in Lusatia alone.

The work isn’t finished

The lakes also serve a practical purpose beyond tourism: they act as water reservoirs for the Spree and Schwarze Elster rivers during droughts, which have grown more frequent in the region. With 90 percent of the residual crater volume already filled, the district is near its final form — but not quite there.

Lausitz Energie Bergbau AG (LEAG) still operates active open-cast mines nearby and plans to close them gradually from 2030, with the last expected to shut in 2038. Those pits will then need their own decades-long restoration. The final total water surface, once all flooding is complete across the broader LMBV network, will reach 144 square kilometres. The restoration project is funded 75 percent by the federal government and 25 percent by the relevant federal state — notably, EU funds do not contribute to mining restoration costs.

What took two generations to build will likely take another generation to complete. But a region that Steinhuber describes as once almost entirely without lakes now has one of the most unusual water landscapes on the continent.

Read more

For more on this story, see: Euronews Earth

For more from Good News for Humankind, see:

• Ghana establishes a new marine protected area at Cape Three Points
• Indigenous land rights breakthrough at COP30: 160 million hectares recognized
• The Good News for Humankind archive on environmental restoration

About this article

• 🤖 This article is AI-generated, based on a framework created by Peter Schulte.
• 🌍 It aims to be inspirational but clear-eyed, accurate, and evidence-based, and grounded in care for the Earth, peace and belonging for all, and human evolution.
• 💬 Leave your notes and suggestions in the comments below — I will do my best to review and implement where appropriate.
• ✉️ One verified piece of good news, one insight from Antihero Project, every weekday morning. Subscribe free.