The 1,680 hectare Lunow-Stolper Pold­er and the 650 hectare Friedrich­sthaler Pold­er (5/6) are typ­i­cal dry pold­ers. They are com­plete­ly sealed off from flood­ing by dykes. But that does not mean that they are com­plete­ly dry. They too are criss-crossed by numer­ous oxbow lakes, on the banks of which ani­mal and plant life are con­cen­trat­ed. In addi­tion, when the water lev­el is high in the riv­er or, water repeat­ed­ly seeps into the dry pold­er via the ground­wa­ter or through the dike foot, which is low­er in the south than the mid­dle Oder water. There­fore, water is con­stant­ly pumped from the dry pold­er into the Stro­mod­er or the Hohen­saat­en-Friedrich­sthaler Wasser­straße via the pump­ing stations.
The main­te­nance and devel­op­ment plan for the dry pold­ers does not pro­vide for these pold­ers to be opened to nat­ur­al flood­ing. For nature con­ser­va­tion rea­sons, an open­ing of the dike at least tem­porar­i­ly in the Lunow-Stolper dry pold­er would be desir­able, but the dry pold­er is too deep or the riv­er or its bot­tom is now too high. If the dike on the riv­er Oder were opened, the dry pold­er would fill up when the water lev­el on the Oder was appro­pri­ate. How­ev­er, the Lunow-Stolper Pold­er is to be grad­u­al­ly con­vert­ed to pure grass­land man­age­ment, so that at least in the event of extreme floods this pold­er could also be flood­ed in order to cut the high water tip of the Oder. The flood­ing of arable areas would be prob­lem­at­ic because of ero­sion and the entry of chem­i­cal fer­til­iz­ers and pes­ti­cides into sur­face waters. Such a strat­e­gy would increase the reten­tion areas for extreme floods; it serves flood pro­tec­tion and not pri­mar­i­ly nature con­ser­va­tion. But the dry pold­ers are also of great impor­tance for nature con­ser­va­tion as alter­na­tive areas for plants and ani­mals that have adapt­ed as cul­tur­al suc­ces­sors to exten­sive cul­ti­va­tion by humans. Such alter­na­tive areas are need­ed because the nation­al park con­cept pro­vides for 50 per­cent of the area to be tak­en out of use, which is there­fore unsuit­able for cer­tain cul­tur­al followers.