Creating Water Sensitive Danish Cities

Fiona Chandler, Leader for the Communication and Adoption Pathways Program at the CRCWSC for Water Sensitive Cities (CRCWSC), recently had the pleasure of sharing Australian experiences at a recent conference in Copenhagen on climate-resilient cities. The conference is part of an initiative called “Water in Urban Areas”, a strategic partnership funded by the Danish Council for Technology and Innovation.

The partnership has been operating from 2010-2014, and the conference in November 2014 was celebrating a new era for the partnership which will shift into an innovation network operating from December 2015 into July 2018.

Like our own CRCWSC, the Danish “Water in Urban Areas” is a strategic partnership between more than 150 different partners, including various knowledge institutions; water and wastewater utilities; public authorities; consultants and architects; manufacturers and developers; and non-government organisations.

The Danish University of Technology (DTU), a CRCWSC research participant, is an important leader of the initiative and is helping to facilitate numerous projects aimed at transforming many Danish cities – which are sensitive to climate change and with high emissions of carbon dioxide – into climate resilient cities with reduced carbon emissions and continued welfare. Projects include innovative climate adaption involving the public; infiltration systems using constructed soils; cost/benefit analysis and maintenance; and hydraulic capacity of green roofs.

DTU is working with the CRCWSC to better understand and develop strategies to enhance flood resilience. Specifically, the project on “Social-technical flood resilience in water sensitive cities” (Project B4.1) is helping to address the question of how flood risk can be integrated into other planning and management practices to improve the protection of infrastructure while achieving multiple other water sensitive city outcomes.