The ‚Kraichgau’ is a fertile hilly region in the Northwest of the federal state of Baden-Württemberg, SW-Germany. It is part of the Neckar catchment area and borders on the ‚Odenwald’ low mountains in the North, the Neckar Valley in the Northeast, the Stromberg and Heuchelberg downlands in the Southeast, the Black Forest in the Southwest and the Rhine Valley in the West. The natural geographic region of the ‚Kraichgau’ is located at an altitude of 100–400 m a.s.l. and covers approximately
1,600 km². Our study region comprises about 1,400 km² of the whole Kraichgau region.

Due to its location in a basin surrounded by low mountain ranges, the Kraichgau is characterised by a mild climate with an annual mean temperature of more than 9 °C making it one of the warmest regions in Germany. Mean annual precipitation amounts to 720 to 830 mm. Intense rainfall events (> 10 mm) are typical during summer; the prevailing wind direction is southwesterly.

The tectonic depression of the Kraichgau is built up by Triassic rocks. The rocks of this gently hilly region are predominantly composed of upper shell limestone (‘Muschelkalk’) over wide areas covered by clayey keuper (‘Lettenkeuper’) and gypsum keuper (‘Gipskeuper’). At the borders to the Black Forest and the Small Odenwald low mountains the rocks consist of Bunter sandstone (‘Buntsandstein’). The hilly region is largely covered by loess which developed to pararendzinae and para-brown earths.