By AFP - Agence France Presse
Copenhagen faces its biggest climate threat: water
Camille BAS-WOHLERT
In Copenhagen, a low-lying city where rising sea levels, groundwater, and rainfall pose a risk to infrastructure, the Danish capital is trying to adapt and protect urban areas from climate change.
The Karens Minde Park is one of more than 300 projects underway to prevent the city from being submerged.
A former swamp, once shunned by the people who lived nearby, has been redesigned with attractive winding paths and grassy areas that double up to collect rain and flood water.
Built on the shores of the Oresund Strait, Copenhagen is extremely vulnerable to water.
“The whole of Copenhagen is, in a way, in negotiation with the water cycle because it is a wetland that has been drained,” said Anna Aslaug Lund, professor of architecture at the University of Copenhagen.
The threat is threefold. The Danish Meteorological Institute predicts that rainfall will increase by 30% to 70% by 2100; the sea will also rise by an average of 42 cm (16.5 inches) by the end of the century, and groundwater is also rising.
Only a trained eye would notice the special water defenses installed in the Karen's Minde Park.
At one of the bends in the brick path, there are three pipe outlets for rainwater collected in the neighborhood. It then flows into an artificial lake a few hundred meters away.
- Inventing solutions - You can benefit from the fact that the water is cleaned as it is collected.
The water is cleaned as it is “transported through the drip meadow, and then here we can store it and finally pour it back into the harbor,” said Ditte Reinholdt Jensen of Hofor, the water and utilities provider that designed the park with the city.
Grass, shrubs, and trees line the artificial lake.
As well as managing flood waters, Copenhagen wants to “improve biodiversity, combat the effects of the heat island and create green areas” for people to gather, Jan Rasmussen, from the city's climate adaptation project, told AFP.
The city began working in 2008 to identify its weak points, mainly due to flooding.
“The biggest challenge is that we don't have a manual,” there are no tried and tested methods ‘of how to do this,’ he said.
Therefore, solutions vary from neighborhood to neighborhood.
After the torrential rain of July 2, 2011, when 135.4 mm (5.3 inches) fell in just two hours, causing extensive damage, the city decided to develop a network of stormwater tunnels.
These tunnels serve as underground “highways” for rain in areas where urban development does not allow for direct water management.
“If we don't have space, we need pipes to divert the water out of the city,” said Rasmussen.
- Model for other cities - You could become a model for other cities.
Some projects, such as the construction of the artificial island Lynetteholmen, which would serve as a dyke against rising seawater, have failed to gain unanimous support.
But in general, the city has been applauded for its efforts to adapt.
“They're trying,” researcher Isabel Froes, an associate professor at Copenhagen Business School, told AFP.
“They are engaging with researchers and the public to create more awareness.”
Even as the city's population grows, one of its strongest principles is to avoid building in low-lying areas.
“There are still many places in Copenhagen that have problems with flooding caused by rainwater,” said Aslaug Lund.
“We should avoid development in low-lying areas.”
Copenhagen's efforts are seen as a model for what other cities can do, said Froes.
“I call Denmark a prototype country because of its scope,” she said.
“It's a great place to test new measures and also to involve citizens around them because Denmark is a trusting society. We tend to follow rules, and we also like rules, which is not (the case) everywhere.”
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