#Solution Copenhagen, a flood-resistant city
Update 2015-11-30
A DUAL SURVEILLANCE SYSTEM FOR FLOOD PREVENTION
Veolia Initiative
Adaptation
On 2 July 2011, extraordinarily heavy rains in Copenhagen caused severe flooding, the cost of which was estimated at 700 million euros. The city’s rainwater drainage system was unable to cope with this severe weather phenomenon. Acting on advice from Krüger, a Veolia subsidiary that manages water and wastewater treatment in Scandinavia, Finland, Poland and the Baltic states, the city decided to invest in better retention basin surveillance systems and weather alerts to prevent possible damage from any future episodes of this intensity.
The installation of a smart grid with a number of intelligent and modular software solutions, associated with better weather monitoring as part of an anticipation strategy, means the city can now use existing infrastructures to channel water in and out of storage basins. This choice allowed the city to reduce investment costs by 93% as compared with an alternative solution involving the creation of additional basins. The number of sewage overflows decreased by 90% between 2013 and 2014, highlighting the effectiveness of the systems implemented in Copenhagen.