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Tivoli Amusement park responds to the changing climate

Tivoli Amusement park responds to the changing climate

A violent rainstorm in Copenhagen on 2 July 2011 posed a significant problem for one of the world's oldest amusement parks.

Since the inundation the management of Tivoli, whose gardens were founded in 1843, has drawn up an emergency response plan and made essential changes to the amusement park in order to reduce its vulnerability. Tivoli also has plans for further adaptation to the changing climate.

During the downpour on 2 July 2011, a 24-hour reading of rainfall in the Greater Copenhagen area showed a local maximum of 135.5 mm - the highest measurement for precipitation in 55 years. Furthermore, the epicentre of the downpour was in a particularly vulnerable area. A very large percentage of Copenhagen's districts are paved and, due to very low permeability, cannot adequately channel or absorb extreme amounts of water.

 

A historic event with tangible results

With its central location at the heart of Copenhagen, Tivoli was one of the areas that experienced the full force of the downpour. For the first time in the gardens' 168-year history, the management decided to evacuate the park as a precautionary measure.

The incident made it clear that management would have to rethink Tivoli's existing emergency plans very carefully. At the same time, it was necessary to reconsider the general layout of the gardens and the location of various sensitive technical installations and warehouses in order to better cope with similar events in the future.


 

Tivoli is highly sensitive to weather conditions, the more so since it is now open throughout almost all the year. In light of this, the management chose to put special emphasis on equipping the facilities to deal with and withstand all conditions, including new and changing weather phenomena traditionally not associated with the Danish climate.

 

According to the Deputy Director of Operations and Development at Tivoli, Mogens Ramsløv, the various stakeholders showed enormous goodwill from the very start of work on reducing the park's vulnerability. The park's own maintenance staff worked long into the night following the downpour of 2 July.

 

"There was a very special team spirit, with everyone working extra hard. Based on the experience of this extreme event, we were able to quickly make a list of simple but focused actions that gave us concrete results in terms of climate adaptation. We started with the easiest measures", Ramsløv explains.

 

"We mapped out and prioritised the contingency plan, adding a new chapter on extreme rainfall. We added flood defence barriers to contingency stores and started to rethink the locations of electric installations, compressors, storage, building materials etc. Furthermore we upgraded our central pumping stations and put agreements in place for hiring smaller pumps. These were all relatively straightforward initial measures."

 

Working towards more climate-ready gardens

 

Tivoli also started identifying long-term solutions, a process that involved a wide spectrum of different external partners.

 

"We found our regular staff to be very open and forthcoming, whilst external actors proved more difficult to contact" Ramsløv explains. He draws attention to the need to be proactive instead of passing on the problem or waiting for someone else (for example the municipality) to take care of it.

 

When asked what advice he would give to others in a similar situation, Ramsløv suggests:

 

"Ensure that clear agreements are in place between your company and other local actors about what they can and should deliver when faced with extreme weather. Also ensure that the responsibilities of all involved parties are clearly outlined and underline the fact that you as a company would rather have too many warnings than too few and risk ending up without sufficient response time to cope with extreme weather."

Future challenges

Beside the agreements made with authorities, local actors and suppliers, Tivoli was able to draw up a list of clear goals:

  • Inform and educate own staff
  • Upgrade own contingency plans as well as equipment such as pumps, generators and so on.
  • Improve communication
  • Make Tivoli less vulnerable
  • Expand own stationary pump systems
  • Rethink the park layout, move electrical installations, pathway crossings and communication platforms
  • Expand sewer systems and add stop valves
  • Close basement toilets
  • Add more waterproof barriers

 

Several unique circumstances however make it hard to for Tivoli to immediately address all these elements to everyone's complete satisfaction.

 

Technical complexity

 

Tivoli is a complex enterprise. It resembles in itself an urban district, with independent restaurants, leased premises and Tivoli's own amusements. Many of the older buildings were originally designed for summer use and have been modified along the way to cope with winter opening. Still, some buildings are just no match for intense precipitation and water finds its way in.

 

With a total area of only 82,717 m2 which has to serve a wide array of purposes, Tivoli has had to build extensive underground storage areas beneath practically every building in the park. These basements and other low lying facilities suffered a lot of damage during the 2 July downpour and the cleaning and repairs are expected to run to February 2012.

 

In most areas of the park, it is difficult to start large construction projects without affecting visitors.

 

Old, complex electrical installations also prove difficult to change or renovate without closing down large parts of the amusement park.

 

When faced with very heavy rain, the need to channel water away becomes paramount. And in Tivoli, the only place to direct the water is a small lake in the middle of the park.

 

However, as the picture below clearly shows, the lake doesn't have the capacity to carry large amounts of additional water.


Costs

In its efforts to prioritise visitor safety, Tivoli's management has decided that defending Tivoli against future extreme rainfall events cannot wait. Precautionary measures were implemented quickly in order to heighten park safety. As a result, the changes in Tivoli have been relatively expensive, and when compared with climate adaptation in other parts of the community, they have no, or very few, associated benefits. The money spent must be seen as a pure expense in connection with climate adaptation on Tivoli's annual budget.

However the experience gained has effected a change in the way Tivoli thinks about preventive planning.