The entire Fechenheimer Mainbogen is a floodplain and thus an important retention area for the Frankfurt metropolitan area. In some years, a special natural spectacle occurs here when the vast landscape slowly disappears beneath the floodwaters of the Main and temporarily becomes a lake district.
At the Fechenheimer Mainbogen in eastern Frankfurt, the fortified banks of the Main have been redesigned in many places to provide more diversity, allowing its waters to flow through the landscape once again. Since 2015, an approximately 90-hectare area has been home to a near-natural landscape with floodplain characteristics and more diverse habitats for animals and plants.
The City of Frankfurt am Main commissioned a preliminary study for such structural improvements in 2008. The study proposed locations for 39 individual measures along Frankfurt's Main riverbanks that would enable the city to implement the objectives of the European Water Framework Directive 2000.