The excavation of the floodplain landscape of the White Elster, which is used for agriculture and forestry, destroyed a hitherto popular local recreation area south of Leipzig.

The economic structural change and massive acceptance problems in the population resulted in the establishment of the broad citizen initiative Stop Cospuden in 1989.

Until then, the opencast mine had taken up an excavation area of 5.1 km2 (2.0 sq mi) and delivered around 32 million tons of lignite to the surrounding processing companies.

In terms of scope, these extend far beyond the legally prescribed revitalization services and also beyond the forms of use at comparable residual lakes, since the Cospudener See was viewed as a model project for the possibilities of designing a post-mining landscape.

The financing and implementation of the plans was essentially due to the subject of Expo 2000's motto "man - nature - technology",[9] in which the Cospudener See took part as a decentralized contribution of the city of Leipzig.

[10] During the revegetation, a local recreation area with a beach and landscape park was laid out around the lake and opened as part of Expo 2000 on 1 June 2000.

The leisure activities are for sunbathing and swimming and are well accepted by sailors, windsurfers, kite surfers, inline skaters, divers and cyclists, so that the Cospudener See has developed into a popular local recreation area.

[22][23] The Zwenkauer See is also to be connected to the Cospudener See via the Neue Harth canal, which, according to press reports, is "stuck in planning and financing issues" in 2022.

Due to the high investments, which are estimated at 30-35 million euros, the participation of private investors and the finding of reliable sponsorship and operator models for the implementation of the plans will be decisive for success.

The Cospudener See is part of the 2015 submitted Tourismuswirtschaftlichen Gesamtkonzeptes für die Gewässerlandschaft im mitteldeutschen Raum, which means in English Overall Tourism Concept for the Water landscape in Central Germany.

A Second Nature Landscape Cospuden was on the shortlist of the European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture - Mies van der Rohe Award.