Description
The basin in which the lake rises was created by the formation of a 'knee fold' along a rocky fracture. Landslide debris formed after the glaciations then delimited the basin to the north and west, allowing the lake to form.
In the surrounding forests, depending on location, spruce (Picea excelsa) or Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) or silver fir (Abies alba) predominate. A special type of 'pioneer' vegetation then colonised the rocky slopes north of the lake.
The first record of the lake reddening dates back to 1864, but the cause of the water colouration was wrongly attributed to the rotting of the numerous logs scattered on the bottom. Only in 1941 was the organism responsible for the phenomenon precisely described.
For several years now, since 1964 to be precise, the reddening of Lake Tovel has not occurred. It is not easy to identify the precise cause responsible for the failure of the phenomenon. Various hypotheses have been put forward and all of them are more or less attributable to anthropic interventions.
In the future, Lake Tovel is unlikely to experience the reddening phenomenon again as in the past, as environmental conditions have changed considerably. However, slight pre-reddening has been occurring with some regularity since 1977.
The wildlife importance of the Lake Tovel area is also significant: in addition to animals typical of coniferous forests, the chamois (Rupicapra rupicapra), golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) and the imperial raven (Corvus corax) are present at the highest altitudes. A rich avifauna of lake and torrential environment lives around the lake, while the lake's ichthyofauna is represented by the Arctic char (Salvelinus alpinus) and the minnow (Phoxinus phoxinus).
The fauna entity that characterises Val di Tovel is, however, the brown bear (Ursus arctos), which here finds ideal conditions for survival: Val di Tovel is in fact one of the areas of primary importance for the conservation of Trentino's bear population.
Studies
- management plan
