For organizational reasons, the exhibition is occasionally closed.
Permanent exhibition
Rivers
The Nidda flows through Hesse from the volcanic Vogelsberg to its confluence with the Main near Frankfurt-Höchst. Now, the river also accompanies visitors through the new exhibition “Rivers”: Using the Nidda as an example, the connection between geology and water, the biodiversity along the river, and the water cycle in the region are clearly explained.
With the support of Mainova AG, the Senckenberg Nature Museum has designed extraordinary multimedia exhibits for this purpose. The company supplies Frankfurt with drinking water that is sustainably extracted in the region and is committed to the resource-efficient use of water. The exhibition also deliberately establishes a strong connection to the region in terms of content.
In the walk-in water drop, visitors shrink to the size of a grain of sand and enter a world that can otherwise only be seen under a microscope. Tiny organisms larger than life swim around here – delicate, sometimes translucent, and surprisingly diverse in form and aesthetics.
The second multimedia highlight exhibit offers a bird’s-eye view: visitors can survey the Rhine-Main area from the Vogelsberg to the Hessian Ried and have the opportunity to intervene in the water cycle themselves. What would happen to the water balance if this area were almost completely built up and thus sealed?
What consequences do reforestation and the expansion of agricultural use have on the water cycle? And how do extreme weather events such as heavy rainfall or drought affect it?
The simulation, which uses real data from the Hessian Agency for Nature Conservation, Environment, and Geology (HLNUG) and was developed in cooperation with this agency, is an absolute novelty.
At other interactive stations, visitors can discover amazing facts about the geology of the water and the flora and fauna of the Nidda. Among other things, the rare kingfisher and the shy mink – a species of mink that immigrated from America – can be seen up close in the exhibition. They are examples of animals that have returned to this habitat or become native to it since the 1990s as a result of the renaturation of the Nidda. Visitors can also learn more about the range of Senckenberg research on and in rivers.
To provide a global perspective, four of the world’s largest rivers are presented as examples: the Amazon, the Nile, the Ganges, and the Rhine. In addition to fascinating facts and figures about the diversity of ecosystems, the cultural significance of these waterways for local residents is particularly emphasized. Animated maps illustrate the changes in the water volume of these rivers over the course of a year. Unfortunately, global water scarcity is often underestimated, and it is in our interest to show how drastic the changes we are making to our water and our world are. In addition, animated world maps provide impressive insights into the development of renewable freshwater resources over the past decades.