Pictured: Knowledge Park's ponds closest. Behind you can see Nobel Park and southern Brunnshög. Photo Perry Nordeng.

Although only a small part of the dwellings in Brunnshög in northeastern Lund have been completed, the area's two parks have already been built, The Knowledge Park and Nobel Park, clear. This is largely due to the fact that parks should not only be aesthetic recreation areas but also be a collection point for rainwater. In the parks there are dam facilities that purify and retard the rainwater. The solutions have been made possible by Lund Municipality and VA SOUTH have worked together at an early stage to plan water flows on the site.

- I have been working at VA Syd since 2010 and planning for Brunnshög had just started, says Cornelia Wallner at VA SYD. In the in-depth master plan, we developed a basic structure for stormwater management and this is an important prerequisite for its operation. It is not very often that the park is built earlier than the buildings so that the municipality wants to invest in the parks in this way is unique.

- There is also another great advantage of being early with the parks, because it makes the area more attractive, says landscape architect Nina Lindegaard. By setting up the parks early, the plants have already been established and there is a nice frame from the beginning. In addition, it is of course a great advantage that during the expansion we know exactly where we can direct the water.

The conditions for stormwater runoff are slightly different in large parts of Brunnshög than it is elsewhere in Lund. In Lund, most of the water flows down towards Höje å in the south — but large parts of Brunnshög slope the other way, to the north-east. There, VA SYD had no stormwater network and no given connection point. Therefore, a new connection point had to be created through Glomsbäcken, which takes the water towards Kävlingeån. On the way to Kävlingeån, Kungsmarken is passed, which is a Natura 2000 area, which means that high demands are placed on the quality of the water released.

- We are allowed to release a very small flow, 1.3 liters per second per hectare, says Cornelia Wallner. It's an extremely tough requirement. As a comparison, it can be seen in other areas where one also works with lag that releases about 20 liters/second and hectare. We have built large areas in Brunnshög to delay the water, and if we had not done so, we would not have been able to cope with such a low flow and the district would not have been able to be built.

- We have made the highlight of the area in accordance with how the water should flow, continues Nina Lindegaard. Nobel Park has been designed so that it can take care of torrential rains or the so-called “100 year rains” in that there is room for the water to rise. The park has been created so that it has islands at the edge with different contents and an open boweled surface in the middle where water can rise. In the northern part of the bowelled surface we have landscaped wetland with fluctuating water but otherwise there is no permanent water mirror in the park.

Kunskapsparken is a large park with ditches, oversiling surfaces, pre-ponds and a large pond where there is always water. The dam is the final destination for most of the stormwater at Brunnshög and it is also where the largest delay volume is found. The water is purified by particles settling, mainly in the steam ponds but also in the large pond, and in some parts of the plant there are wetland plants that help with the purification. After the large dam, the water is directed via a ditch to Glomsbäcken.

- We have got to the open lag through dams instead of having water in underground reservoirs. It has many advantages, says Cornelia Wallner. It becomes geographically correct when you place the dam in a low point and since the plant is open, we also see that it works. When dealing with such large volumes as it does here, it would have been unreasonable to build the facility as an underground storehouse.

- Water is also aesthetically pleasing and it is enriching for biodiversity with environments where plants, insects and animals thrive, points out Nina Lindegaard. In addition, it is educational that we can show how it is connected and where the water goes.

Thanks to the dam in Kunskapsparken, there is also the possibility of irrigation of the park's plants. In the northern part of the dam in Kunskapsparken there is something called a stormwater kiosk, and there the municipality of Lund can collect water for the more than 30,000 plants in the park. But it was not obvious that this solution would disappear.

- It is a difficult issue and we managed to achieve a solution at the last moment, says Cornelia Wallner. There is a lot of law that governs how you are allowed to use stormwater. We made many restrictions, including greatly reducing the area of use so that we only irrigate non-edible crops and so that only the municipality of Lund and the municipality's operating contractors are allowed to use the water. It's great that the storm water kiosk got rid of.

At Brunnshög, it remains only to resolve the details of how the water will flow in what is called the western greenway, west of the tramway in the middle part of Brunnshög. In order for there to be a really good water solution there too, a design program will be developed and the structural plans will be fine-tuned.

Other water solutions are also being tested at Brunnshög. In the quality guidelines for Brunnshög, it is stated that streets are raised so that water can flow into plantings and therefore no obstructing curbs are used. A cutting edge solution is to try introducing water into open reinforcement layers under bike lanes — and perhaps this will be tested on a smaller scale in the area.

In the properties, it is the construction companies that decide whether there will be any innovative water solutions. For example, it could be to save rainwater from the roofs for irrigation but it could also be other solutions that save on drinking water. The municipality of Lund discusses with the property owners at Brunnshög and encourages them to make sustainable solutions. A property in the area with the water in the center is “Det Goda Vatten” where the residents have a naturally purified pool in the yard and the plants are watered by taking advantage of storm water.

- There is a sustainability memo for Brunnshög, which is a contract signed between the municipality and the property owners, says Nina Lindegaard. In it, Lund Municipality shows what we can do and VA Syd, for example, what they do. There are also suggestions for what property owners can do, for example in the field of water and energy. Through this, we and the real estate operators inspire each other.

Work on the creation of the new district Brunnshög is expected to be completed around 2050.

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