Installation of microclimate sensors started in Copenhagen
The installation of microclimate sensors and soil sampling has been completed for the first of the five INNATURE demo cases: Copenhagen. Last week, researchers Harun Niron and Olivia van der Weiden carried out the first round of monitoring on site, together with our local democase partner researchers Emilia Lausen and Marina Bergen Jensen.
With climate change and increasing urbanisation, cities are facing growing pressure from flooding caused by extreme precipitation events. The Copenhagen demo case focuses on developing a sustainable, simple, and cost-effective way to improve water management in a high-rise building area, while also enhancing biodiversity through the planting of native species.
In this demo case, rooftop runoff from the surrounding buildings is stored and managed through vertical nature-based solutions, including a rain dike, rain mound, and aboveground rainbed. These solutions not only support water infiltration, but also enable evaporation, helping to manage rainwater more locally and reduce pressure on the urban drainage system. To better understand the impact of these solutions, we installed microclimate sensors at different depths and collected soil samples at the nature-based solutions, a negative control site where no intervention will take place, and a permaculture garden as a positive control.
Together with biodiversity monitoring, these measurements will help us assess how nature-based solutions influence local soil temperature and moisture patterns, soil health, and biodiversity, and how they can contribute to more climate-resilient and biodiverse urban environments. And although fieldwork always comes with challenges (urban soils can be surprisingly hard and full of bricks and rocks), the monitoring was successfully completed, with some much-needed help from an automatic auger. The motto of the day: “The soil was hard, but the food was good.”
Now that the monitoring equipment is in place and the first data are starting to come in, we are excited to follow how the site develops over the coming years. More demo cases coming soon!
Photos by: Emilia Danuta Lausen