Weißensee
The Weißensee is the highest situated bathing lake in the European Alpine Zone and has an excellent bathing water quality with summer temperatures up to 26 °C. Two bathing beaches inviting guests are situated in a nearly untouched natural scene.
The geological back land in the catchment area consists of a series of lime-, dolomite- and marl–rock.
Natural shore zones. Situated in the Gailtaler Alpen. The Weißensee has about 2/3 of natural left banks. The lake stretches from the west to the east in an open valley, which was formed by a side –branch of the Drau Glacier during Ice Age (12.000 years ago).The south and the north shore are bordered by partly steeply falling down, woody mountain ranges, covered with conifer- deciduous mixed forests. The steep slopes continue in the underwater slopes of the lake. The highest peaks of the mountain range are the Spitzkegel with 2.118 m and the Latschur with 2.236 m. The narrow eastern shore extends flatly.
The most western section of the lake includes the Gatschacher Becken that reaches as far as the narrowest place of the lake near Techendorf. Already in the 11th century a bridge over the lake has connected Techendorf with the villages in the south of the lake. The hallow basin in the west has only a depth of 5 m and an area of 77 ha. From the Gatschacher Becken to Neusach there is a section of about 15 m depth. From now on the ground by and by sinks down to about 50 m and reaches about 90 m in the most eastern part. In the middle of the lake it even reaches 99 m.
While the shores of the large deep basin in the east are only thinly populated, near the flat western end there are villages like Oberdorf, Gatschach, Techendorf and Neusach.
The landscape around the lake is mostly wooded, there is no intensive agriculture. Tourism chiefly confines to the western shore zones.
Underwater wells in the lake. The lake is fed by smaller, regularly water- bearing brooks with only little water, and by under water wells. It is drained by the Weißenbach in the east near Stockenboi (790l/s), where a flood gate regulates the water level. The Weißenbach passes the Stockenboier Graben and flows into the Drau near Ferndorf. It is used for power economy with the help of several power stations.
Excellent bathing water quality. Limnologically the Weißensee belongs to the oligotrophic types which are poor in nutrients and have an excellent bathing water quality. The high summer temperatures of the surface get possible by the strong arrangements of water layers. Although situated in 929 m above sea level the epilimnion, the upper water layer, warms up to 26 °C, above all the temperatures of the flat Gatschacher Becken mostly are about 1 or 2 °C higher than in the main basin. Under a depth of about 6 m the water is already rather cold (15 °C) and deeper than 20 m it is only 4 °C.
The Weißensee belongs to the partly mixed up lakes. The border line between the mixolimnion (= the circulating water substances) and the monimolimnion (=the stagnating deep water regions) is in a depth of about 40 m.
Visual sight down to 10 m. According to its low amount of nutrients the lake is poor in algae which expresses in its high transparency. Sight depths down to 10 m make the lake very attractive for divers. The characteristic white color of the lake, the origin of which are the large lake-lime-banks, gave the lake its name. According to weather the carrying ice sheet is built up from December until March.
Conservation and protection of the natural scene around the Weißensee are central points of all touristic activities and serve to a superior factor of recreation in this region. With the exception of the development area the whole surrounding of the lake with 7.648 ha has been declared the landscape protection area Weißensee (LGBl. 48/1970) and later on the “Natural Park Weißensee”.
The Natural Park Region Weißensee got the EU-prize for “tourism and environment” and claims the predicate “salubrious climatic health resort”.
No street is leading around the lake. If you want to go from the east- to the west-end of the lake it is best to choose the ship. The “Weißensee Schifffahrt” has 6 ships and runs from the middle of May until October. With the exception for commercial navigation there is a general ban for motor boats on the lake. Every year in winter the Dutch competitions for speed- skating take place on the lake.
| Weißensee - Geographic Coordinates |
| Latitude e. |
13,37748293 |
| Latitude n. |
46,700958 |
| m. a. sealevel |
929 |
| Weißensee - Morphometric Data |
| Surface [km²] |
6,531249 |
| Max. Depth [m] |
99 |
| Average Depth [m] |
35,1 |
| Volume [m³] |
226.098.549 |
| Theoretical Water Residence Time [Years] |
9,2 |
| Runoff MQ (1971 - 1990) [l/s] |
787 |
| Catchment Area [km²] |
49,63 |
24 fish species are proved in the Weißensee:
Pike (Esox lucius)
Bass (Perca fluviatilis)
White fish (Coregonus lavaretus) White trout
Lake trout (Salmo trutta f. lacustris)
Chub (Leuciscus cephalus)
Grass carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella)
Bitterling (Rhodeus sericeus amarus)
Bream (Abramis brama)
Carp (Cyprinus carpio)
Bleak (Alburnus alburnus)
Roach (Rutilus rutilus)
Common rudd (Scardinius erythrophthalmus)
Tench (Tinca tinca)
Pike-perch (Sander lucioperca)
Crucian carp (Carassius carassius)
Krook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis)
Rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss)
Char (Salvelinus alpinus)
Brown trout (Salmo tutta f. fario)
Minnow (Phoxinus phoxinus)
Gudgeon (Gobio gobio)
Ruffe (Gymnocephalus cernua)
Prussian carp (Carassius auratus gibelio)
Used for angling. The fish in the lake are exclusively used for angling. Authorized are the members of the Agrargemeinschaft Weißensee, which includes 5 villages. They manage an own breeding house in Neusach. The Weißensee belongs to the most intensively used fishing waters of Carinthia. A main part of the overnight stays are in relation to angling. In May 90% of the tourists are anglers. In direct connection with it the high average fishing profit is 20 kg/ ha a year. The fishing season lasts from the beginning of May until the middle of October.
24 species of fish in the lake. Most of them came into the lake by being stocked not earlier than in the second half of the 20th century. Above all the pike that was stocked at the end of the 1940s for the first time, has rapidly reproduced, and decimates a great part of the fishing profit.
The most important species in the lake are the white fish and the pike. Also carp, tench, roach, chub and bass can often be found.
Originally 9 species of fish belonged to the lake. The main fish, however, was the lake trout. In 1934 they stocked white fish out of the Millstätter See. Later on bigger growing species were stocked (Maränen) and could develop relatively well, so that up to now the lake has a remarkable population of them. Catches of individuals with more than 3 kg are not rare.
In former times the main fish in the lake was the lake trout, with two forms: the “Weißensee- Lachs”, with even more than 20 kg, and the “Angler” with weights up to ½ kg. The bigger form of trout is already mentioned in a document out of the year 1485 (SANTONONO, 1485, found by EGGER, 1947)
Also HARTMANN (1883) describes a variety of lake trout , such as e.g. a gold trout.
Since the end of the 1970s there was an enormous retreat of lake trout, caused by the stocking of not native species, which can be connected with a displacement of the population spectrum. Another reason was the sinking of the water level in winter for the power industry, as well as the STELLNETZ- fishing at the spawn places (under water wells, also called “Brünn”) of the lake trout ( Honsig- Erlenburg et al., 1997). A project should help to settle down the native lake trout again. It seems as if they have succeeded, because in summer 1999 there were more sightings and catches (126 individuals), compared with the years before (15 individuals). In winter 2001 for the first time lake trout climbed up the Neissacher Mühlbach again for spawning. In summer 2002 they caught a lake trout of 11, 5 kg.
According to information of the botanic Wulfen 200 years ago the char existed in the Weißensee, too. Today it plays only a secondary factor. They suppose that this species was pushed back by the stocking of white fish and their rivalry to the char. In 1968 (Pawlik, 119) the grass carp was stocked for the first time. Again and again individuals with more than 1 m and weights up to 15 kg could be caught. Since the 1980s the grass carp has declined again, which ecologically is to be estimated positively. The gudgeon, which was called “Bauer” or “Lettenwühler” (Hartmann, 1898) can only be found sporadically, as well as minnow and PFRILLE. PAWLIK (1990) tells that in 1986 prussian carp were stocked as food fish. Since the 1940s also pike perch occur in the lake.
Weissensee-Information, web:
www.weissensee-kaernten.at, Tel.: 04713/2220-0
Hotel Gasthof Weissensee, Gatschach 3, phone: 04713/2214
Gasthof Dolomitenblick (Weissensee eastern banks), phone: 4761/390
www.gemeinde-weissensee.at www.weissensee.com
Marvellous crayfish population in Carinthia. In the Weißensee they could document the existence of the North American KAMBER crayfish (
Orconectes limosus) for the first time. A dense population of large-growing
Astacus astacus lived in the lake up to the year 1980. Maybe KAMBER crayfish, which were infected with the crayfish plague, and the little amount of dragged in pike- bait are the reasons for the destruction of the Astacus astacus population. The KAMBER crayfish find ideal living conditions in the relatively high water temperatures and the rich chandelier-algae population, so that this small species now can be found in half of the (mostly western part) of the lake.
Valuation of the ecological status. The catchment area of the lake is the region, out of which the surface- and the underground waters flow into the lake. The borders of this area are formed by the watershed. The cartographic description of these catchment areas referring to the usage is the base for the valuation of the ecological status in regard to the general water instructions (WFD). All the fundamental data are registered in a data bank. With the help of the software Arc View GIS, version 3.2, the analysis of the geographic information took place. The topographic state, the natural vegetation and the antrophogen usage of the catchment area deliver important information about nutrient- and pollutant burdens.
40 verschiedene Vegetationsformen. Die Angaben zur Vegetation stammen von HARTL, STERN & SEGER (2001): "Die Karte der aktuellen Vegetation von Kärnten". Die daraus erhaltenen georeferenzierten Daten wurden mit den Einzugsgebieten verschnitten und in die Datenbank übertragen. Insgesamt wird zwischen 40 verschiedenen Vegetationsformen unterschieden.
Für eine bessere Überschaubarkeit der Ergebnisse sind diese Vegetationsformen in der folgenden Tabelle in die Großgruppen Intensiv landwirtschaftlich genutzte Flächen, Wirtschaftsgrünland, Wald, Oberflächengewässer, Verbaute Flächen, Alpen und Sonstiges zusammengefasst.
34 forms of utilization in the catchment area. They were geo-referenced and blended with the digital register (DKM) out of 2003.The granted data were transmitted into a data bank and now afford information about the dimensional distribution of the different forms of utilization. The 34 forms of utilization have also been comprehended in the main groups like it has been done for the vegetation groups.
