A Danish organization has launched a pilot project where porous pavement tiles recycle rainwater to reduce the impact of heavier rainfalls on the city’s wastewater system.
So-called “Climate Tiles” have been installed in a 50m (164ft) strip along Heimdalsgade street, in Copenhagen’s Nørrebro neighborhood. The tiles have holes that lead to pipes, which can be arranged in a way to deliver water to nearby plants and fountains. The system is meant to fit together much like Lego blocks, where different tiles (with horizontal, vertical or connecting pipes) can be “snapped” together to create an infinite number of arrangements. The tiles can also be used on roofs, where the pipes would connect to a tank located at a lower level from them.
City officials hope that diverting water from the city’s wastewater systems will mean less money will need to be spent on expanding and repairing it. This could be especially important if global climate change drives heavier rains, as appears to be happening in many parts of the world. The tiles’ creator, Danish eco-organization Third Nature, says that its system should be able to divert 30 percent of the runoff from a 10-year storm (a storm that has a 10 percent chance of occurring in any given year). But the company is just as excited about the system’s impact on helping to create a more livable city, rain or shine.
"In addition to achieving a percentage of time when we experience extreme rainfall events, the solution also creates a big city life value for the cities the remaining 99 percent of the time,” said Flemming Rafn Thomsen, one of the organization’s partners, in a press release. “We believe that our streets are society's pulse veins where we meet in everyday life, and our pavements are an underestimated part of our infrastructure that has a great potential for our future community in the ever-expanding cities.”
The pilot is just a small part of what Third Nature wants to achieve with its system. The firm has expressed interest in talking with various Danish municipalities about its system, and seeing it implemented in a larger way. It would also like to update the system so that it can include high-tech plug-ins that could provide people with updates about the state of the system; for example, a sensor might alert water authorities about the current water level in the system. Third Nature is interested in communicating with Danish municipalities about potential partnerships and the construction of several sidewalks.
The pilot was officially launched on September at nearby café Heimdalsgade22.