In an article published January 10th The New York Times lists 31 places to go in 2010. Copenhagen is right at the top of this list and the news paper argues ‘As thousands of environmentalists heckled world leaders in Copenhagen last month for the climate summit, a solitary unifying note could be heard amid the cacophony of discord: the Danish capital has already emerged as one of the world’s greenest — and maybe coolest — cities. Over in the harbour district, a public bath at Osterbro, due to open in 2010, will complement the two swimming areas set off on Copenhagen’s inner harbour, a formerly polluted waterway recently transformed into the city’s summertime hub.’
Swimming in the harbour right in the city centre of Copenhagen has been safe since 2002. The clean and safe bathing water is the result of long-term environmental planning and a willingness to spend hundreds of millions kroner. The long-term planning has during the last 10 years more than halved the amount of sewage water discharged and still reductions take place. In March 2006 Copenhagen municipality received the European Environmental Management Award. An award which was given for long-term holistic environmental planning combined with the introduction of a state-of-the-art bathing water forecast.
Today the main cause of problems with the bathing water quality is due to short-term pollution incident lasting less than 72 hours. To cope with these short-term problems the EPA decided to introduce the DHI bathing water forecast, a state-of-the-art technology accounting for incidences of pollutions and the fate in the environment. Hence, the tool provides real-time information on health risks to water managers and the public. With this tool the City can provide early warnings of deteriorating water quality and close the harbour bathing basins when human health is at risk.
The bathing water forecast is based on computer simulations of the water quality. It takes outlets from sewers, bacteria levels and local mixing and current conditions which determine the fate of the bacteria into account. Since established in 2002 the system has been extended to cover almost the entire north east coast of Zealand to the benefit of the public.
At the moment the water the Copenhagen harbour is close to freezing, but just a couple of months from now the green flag can be hoisted again as the bathing season opens.