4.1.5 National water scale/networks
Figure 152. Screenshot of the Kumu map at a national water scale/network (Kumu, 2020). It encompasses six mini-nodes, such as maps pertaining to issues around the current ecological status of Danish national waters, its Marine Protected Areas, the history of land reclamation, the coastal areas at risk and their economic worth, a map of the current state of marine vegetation in Danish coastal waters, and the state-of-the-art (SOTA) projects hosted in Kumu Map 2.
Moving from the regional to the national, it becomes evident that the coastal cities in the East coast region of Denmark face a similar fate to SLR and SS as Vejle. The East coast of Jutland has a high concentration of economically valuable cities but a low “natural value” (such as forests, eelgrass, marsh, etc., as shown in Figure 153) (Faragò et al., 2018). Therefore, the East coast cities pose a challenging site for introducing marine nature as there is a stronger priority to protect economic interests. Moreover, the East coast of Jutland has relatively smaller and milder storm surges than the wilder west coast (as shown in Figure 153). This is because storm surge on the east coast is induced by the rapid rise of water from the Baltic sea that is flushing back out into the Atlantic, as shown in Figure 153. This means wave attenuating properties of nature-based solutions have less relevance compared to the west coast cities that could benefit more from them (Boderskov, 2021). However, this also means that the NbS on the east coast need not be as resilient[225] to withstand strong forces as the west coast; therefore, NbS are less likely to be damaged after a major storm to recover. Nevertheless, the strength and frequency of storm surges will likely increase on the East coast (refer to section 3.1.2).
*NB: The following image is embedded into the above "National Scale/Networks (Denmark)" node (scroll down the information window plane in Kumu).
Figure 153. (Top image) Screenshot of mini-node Economic values & Coastal exposure map from Kumu isolated to show its connections to other corresponding nodes (Kumu, 2020).
(Bottom left image) A storm surge in Vejle occurs when large quantities of seawater from the Baltic Sea are forced into the fjord after a western wind storm has pushed water into the Baltic Sea (considered more of a “silent” storm surge event where the water level rises rapidly as the seawater flushes out from the Baltic Sea out into the North Sea). Image credit: Vejle Municipality (2020).
(Bottom right image) Map showing all the coastal cities with average to high property values, all the Coastal Directorate’s risk cities, the strength of waves and the coastal regions with low to high natural areas. Map made with GIS data from SKALGO (n.d.), Eva Sara Rasmussen, Faragò et al. (2018) and Tougaard (2006).
A unique opportunity lies in east coast cities, where smaller tidal variances and waves mean that the coastal protection system need not be as high, presenting calmer and safer water conditions. Furthermore, these conditions can enable a different type of engagement between land and sea, human and non-human, on the urban shorelines, where people can get closer to the water, as water does not pose a danger in the same way. For designers (LUDP disciplines), it presents an opportunity to explore alternative spatial engagement with the water that is more tactile (i.e. refer to the “On Water” artistic bridge installation in Munster – see Figure 90) and even bringing the water closer into the city (i.e. refer to the Membrane project for Kanten/The Edge - see Figure 116).
[225] For instance, young eelgrass plantations may need artificial structural support to prevent them from being rooted in a storm and seaweed (kelp) grown on floating buoys (which are better at mitigating the strength of waves than those from rocks from the sea bed as discussed in section 1.5.2) need to have stronger structural systems that are better anchored to the seabed to prevent them from being destroyed in a storm. Therefore, learnings from Kanten/The Edge competition entries are not all transferrable as general knowledge as these contexts specific criteria heavily determine the design solutions.