Overall objective: To increase climate resilience of Radom City by building demonstrative “green-blue infrastructure” for managing extreme storm water flows and control local flood risks.
Specific objectives:
- Development and implementation of demonstration “green-blue infrastructure” to control extreme storm water flows and the risks they generate in Radom, through concerted actions at multi-levels:
The river catchment level
To mitigate extreme flows of water coming from outside the city and increase storm water retention through restoring and creating multi-use retention areas while creating habitats for biodiversity.
Renaturalization of river to restore its natural retention capacity is planned.
The inner city level
To demonstrate new ways to mitigate extreme runoffs on sealed surfaces in the inner city to minimize local flooding, extreme overflow to drainage system and inflow to natural habitats of the city river. - Integration and enhancement of biodiversity in all project actions. The project will undertake activities to restore habitats in urban water bodies and will create micro habitats in the climate adaption infrastructure in the city.
- To mainstream climate adaptation into city planning and to improve knowledge on the subject for informed decision-making at local level. Two working groups with broad stakeholder’s participation will be established and will operate throughout the project implementation.
- Awareness rising and capacity building on climate adaptation through building Urban green-blue infrastructure. Awareness actions will be conducted for better understanding of the impact of climate change on economic, health, social and environmental functioning of the city, as well as the importance of cost-efficient adaptation options.
- Experience exchange on climate adaptation through green-blue infrastructure and territorial multi-level adaptation approach. The project has a great potential in terms of transferability and replication. Outputs such as vulnerability assessment, comprehensive approach to multi-level territorial rainwater management, GIS tools, and demonstration “green-blue infrastructure”
will be shared with other interested parties.hbouring communities especially Mleczna and Cerekwianka rivers.
Demonstration character of the project.
- Multi-level territorial approach to managing extreme flows in urban areas
Territorial planning provides an important tool for solving multiple problems of flows management. The urban drainage systems are more effective if the regional planning (or another relevant scale level) is considered and the water coming from outside the city is retained before it reaches the inner city.
Adaptation in the city is more successful and cost-efficient if the natural retention and natural green areas and wetlands are restored, preserved and used for retention purposes. Green infrastructure outside the city can buffer the negative effects and store incoming waters into the city. This project will attempt to implement the adaptation actions at two levels: catchment area and inner city area. It has a demonstration character and can be replicated in any city. - “Green-blue infrastructure”
The green-blue infrastructure is based on innovative solutions to solve problems related to runoff, its quantity and quality, from the impermeable surfaces in the urban environment. It is based on integrating the green (nature) and the blue (water) “infrastructure” into the city landscape Chile improving city’s drainage system backups. It is targeted at managing the rainfall as soon as possible after it falls and simultaneously uses it for enhancing biodiversity in the city.
Sustainable management of water at the site of precipitation (integrated approach, source control) is becoming more popular lately, but in Poland, this project is considered as “trend-setting”. Several of such solutions may be cost-efficient, easy to plan. Some examples and best practices are known from the United States, Canada, Australia, Germany, the Scandinavian countries, the UK and France. Some other elements, such as “Klima-pond” have not been installed yet and have full pilot character.
Klima-Pond
It is an innovative modular solution for uptake of large amount of rain and with subsequent slow release to groundwater or rainwater pipe, and with high biodiversity added values. It is currently being developed in Denmark by one the project partners. Klima-Ponds are based on the concept of modular reservoirs which can be adapted to the amount of rain water supplied to them from a surface specially adapted to urban conditions. The vessel is constructed to accumulate in flowing water during rainfall, and then gradually release it to the ground water, rainwater pipes, or river and thereby allow it to infiltrate into the ground and rivers during the following weeks. After releasing the water, the reservoir will be ready to accept another portion of rainwater.
The innovative aspect of the solution is the selection of materials with permeability efficiency that will allow the release of part of the rainwater to the ground, while maintaining an adequate level of water to preserve the natural habitats and to create micro-habitat for aquatic species. The uniqueness of these modular reservoirs depends on their design and adaptation to emulating natural functions: they will act as habitats for amphibian species such as green toad (Bufo viridis), brown frogs (Rana sp.) and the European tree frog (Hyla arborea), as well as many insects, including dragonflies and butterflies. These will create a semi-natural retention pond prepared for the flush flooding with a micro environment in the urban space, also benefiting society. - Climate change vulnerability assessment
The first step to make a city more prepared and resilient to climate change is to understand how it is vulnerable or resilient in terms of impacts on people, infrastructure, public health, and the economy. More and more cities in the EU undertake climate change vulnerability assessments, which serve as the foundation for a climate change preparedness and resilience plans. In Poland, at the time of developing this application, only the city of Warsaw is undertaking vulnerability assessment. Therefore, the pilot vulnerability assessments, with emphasis on City’s storm water system model to under stand the impact of changes in precipitation and the implications for drainage system backups, conducted for Radom will form a demonstrative model that could be replicated in other cities. Radom city vulnerability assessment will use the best available practices, (e.g. City of Copenhagen, Cambridge) and will contribute to furthering the methodology of such assessments in urban areas. - Sequential sedimentation-bio filtration system
The effectiveness of the sequential sedimentation bio filtration system (SSBS) has been confirmed in the framework of the LIFE + (LIFE08 ENV / EN / 000517) project, where it was constructed and tested for water purification of recreational reservoirs in Łódź. The system was used in that project for purification of storm water inflows from separated drainage systems, discharging directly to Urban reservoirs and rivers form small storm water catchments. In this project, the SSBS will be implemented as a demonstration measure (in the restored section of the Mleczna river), as well as demonstrated and tested in two other sites, in new scales and situations: a larger scale SSBS will be implemented at the outflow of a A0 storm water channel (collector) disposing run-offs from the upper Mleczna River catchment directly downstream (currently) and upstream (after implementation of adaptation measures) of the reservoir; a medium scale SSBS, functionally integrated with the extended detention pond, will be implemented at the tributary of the Mleczna river – Potok Północny- to increase its retention capacity and water quality and prevent flooding in the Radom center. All the Tyree implementations will additionally include habitats features supporting biodiversity, improving ecological status of the area and its adaptive potential to climate change. - GIS RadomKlima Portal
The RadomKlima GIS Platform, an internet based tool, will be the first of its type in Poland to allow public to obtain information on climate change, vulnerability and adaptation. The platform will allow to see the small scale climate changes thanks to additionally installed meteorological stations in the city and will show how changes in the local urban landscape the effect of the climate resilience. This possibility is demontrational and will be a great source of knowledge for local students.