Käthe Seidel

Focusing on studies of the Lower Rhine, the Limnological Station was associated with various institutions that became part of the Max Planck Society.

[5][6][7][8] Seidel was also the first to propose horizontal sub-surface flow systems,[9] an area of research that was further explored by her student Reinhold Kickuth.

[10] Käthe Seidel was born in 1907 in Frankenstein, Saxony, Germany (now part of the town of Oederan) where she attended school.

She trained as a gardener at the agricultural college in Halle, Germany, the Landwirtschaftlichen Hochschule, qualifying at the master's level in 1934.

At the age of 47, on 26 February 1951, Seidel received her doctorate for the dissertation Die Flechtbinse, a study of the plant Scirpus lacustris which lives in riparian zones with slow flowing water.

[15] Thienemann considered Seidel to have made significant contributions to the Hydrobiological Institute, through the vitality and energy she brought to her long-term position at the field station in Krefeld.

[3] In November 1968, the Max Planck Society closed the limnological station in Krefeld, but allowed Seidel to continue working there until she officially retired in 1976.

She pumped heavily polluted water from the Rhine River into the test marsh, and measured the effluent that emerged.

After a week or two in the marsh, the water that emerged was substantially lower in phosphorus and nitrogen content, and showed increases in oxygen.

[24] Although it took time for Seidel's work to be appreciated, she inspired many people in the field of ecological design, including biologist John Todd[25] and artist and architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser.

[26] In 1977 Käthe Seidel received the Environmental Medal of the Federal Republic of Germany, and in 1982 the Cross of Merit.