Along the outer edge of the harbour, a dike will fend off the water masses during storm surges. The dike will have three sluices. From land, three emergency flood channels will protect the harbour area against water from cloudbursts, and the inner harbour basin will serve as a large reservoir.
The Blue Edge project in Svendborg will include the establishment of a two-kilometre dike to protect the harbour against a water level of up to three meters above main sea level That's double the current quay height. The dike will consist of fixed concrete quays and openings that can be closed as needed.
The long, continuous dike will be established along the outer edge of the harbour. It will run across the Frederiksø island, which is situated inside the harbour, and which will therefore become a part of the dike.
Between Frederiksø and the northern and southern parts of the harbour area, three sluices will be established on the seabed. The sluiceways will be between 12 and 20 metres wide and can be closed in the event of a high-water alert.
In the southern part of the harbour, an openable bridge will be built on top of the sluice. This will provide a continuous path system across the water.
The defence structure will split Svendborg Harbour into two independent areas, one of which will be dammed in during high-water events.
To protect the harbour against flooding in connection with cloudbursts, three of the city's streets will be retrofitted as emergency flood channels. The streets in question already channel a great deal of rainwater towards the harbour. They will now be retrofitted with emergency flood conduits and wide grates along the edges. The new emergency flood channels will therefore consist of both open and covered water conduits.
At the same time, a previously closed-off stream running towards the harbour will be reopened. Furthermore, various projects for local drainage of rainwater will be established to keep some of the water in the city.
During cloudbursts, the emergency flood channels, and the reopened stream will send water towards the dammed in area of the harbour. This area can hold as much as 66,000 cubic metres of water. Should the water level increase by more than 0.5 metres inside the damming, a pumping station will pump some of the water out into the open area of the harbour.
During the work to establish flood protection for Svendborg, the city will be compartmentalised into four zones with permanent or temporary dikes. Each zone will be equipped with a pumping station, so that stormwater can be pumped out into the large harbour basin, if the zone faces flooding.
The total project will be able to protect the harbour of Svendborg against a 100-year storm surge event and a 100-year rainfall event.