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Swimmable Cities

swimmablecities.org

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Re: Swimmable Cities

#131

Post by Zababa »

coreyh14444 wrote: post #9

American living in Copenhagen here. We check all of these boxes. The entire channel that runs through town is swimmable thanks to decades of work cleaning it up. On a warm summer day, you could expect maybe 1000+ swimmers in the water in the city centre across all the locations. We also do Vinterbadere (Winter Bathing) throughout the year. The only time you can't swim is after a day or two of sustained rain and there…

1000+ people for a city of 600k people doesn't seem like much? Maybe I'm overestimating how much people use each "thing" a city offers.

Re: Swimmable Cities

#133

Post by commenterQWAS »

contrarian1234 wrote: post #88
lou1306 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since all other replies are a bit too concise, I'll try and dive deeper (ha ha). 1) Naturally, rains wash out street grime and small pieces of rubbish which may easily bypass the sewage system altogether and end up in the river. 2) Cities have systems in place to treat wastewaters before releasing them into the rivers. However, these systems need to store yet-untreated water in reservoirs, and heavy rain may fill the…

So naive question.. but how can they ensure all the water upstream is clean? I guess in Copenhagen its water is coming from the Baltic so maybe it's less of a concern (short of container ships having issues near the city). But the Seine river flows through many communities before it reaches Paris. Many opportunities for actors to illegally dump things in the river and for all sorts of nasty runoff agricultural and ot…

It seems to be normal practice. Two weeks ago Russia poisoned a river flowing across the border into Ukraine. The standard monitoring tools and infrastructure seemed sufficient to monitor the situation.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/toxic-substances-flowin...

Re: Swimmable Cities

#134

Post by lukezeitlin »

contrarian1234 wrote: post #88
lou1306 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since all other replies are a bit too concise, I'll try and dive deeper (ha ha). 1) Naturally, rains wash out street grime and small pieces of rubbish which may easily bypass the sewage system altogether and end up in the river. 2) Cities have systems in place to treat wastewaters before releasing them into the rivers. However, these systems need to store yet-untreated water in reservoirs, and heavy rain may fill the…

So naive question.. but how can they ensure all the water upstream is clean? I guess in Copenhagen its water is coming from the Baltic so maybe it's less of a concern (short of container ships having issues near the city). But the Seine river flows through many communities before it reaches Paris. Many opportunities for actors to illegally dump things in the river and for all sorts of nasty runoff agricultural and ot…

Advances in remote sensing are making continuous water quality monitoring much easier. At our company we use a combination of satellite imagery and in situ optical sensors to monitor rivers and reservoirs. As well as a general water quality index, we can estimate concentrations of harmful nutrients, chlorophyll-a, phycocyanin, suspended matter, dissolved organic carbon to name a few.

A further advantage of satellite remote sensing for water quality is that it can be done by a neutral third party, without permission or access to the land, which can help bring a bit of objectivity to the politicized narrative around water quality we are seeing at the moment.

https://www.gybe.eco/

Re: Swimmable Cities

#135

Post by tomw1808 »

welder wrote: post #65
tomw1808 wrote: post #57

Vienna is very swimmable. Not right now, because its cold and rainy, but on a hot summer day thousands of people gather and swim in the Danube every single day. It's amazing, the water is relatively clean, small fishes inside, its a joy for children and adults alike.

Vienna swimming is amazing. I was just swimming in Vienna Alte Donau a few days ago, before it started raining. Because the Donau and Donau-insel are so long, you have many different ways to swim: - swimming docks (alte donau) https://www.instagram.com/p/C_qMA8loXMv - artificial beaches (CopaBeach) - natural swimming (Neu Donau / Donau Insel) https://photos.app.goo.gl/d5iGqKP8uAjyYY81A - Strandbad Angelibad for a rop…

I usually went with the kids to Angelibad before, I really like the vibe and they love the ice cream, playground and kids pool. Now they're getting older, so we're either directly go somewhere to the Donau or hang out in one of the other baths like Strandbad Alte Donau or further down.

I normally don't like sweetwater for swimming and stayed away from the Danube for years. I was expecting the muddy smell and all, but this one's really great - I should've tried it earlier.

Re: Swimmable Cities

#136

Post by [deleted] »

pirate787 wrote: post #127

This is something I want to share but its platform includes nakedly racist framing: Urban swimmers are stewards responsible for protecting the health of their local waterways, working alongside Mother Earth’s closest carers, such as Indigenous peoples...

[deleted]

Re: Swimmable Cities

#137

Post by 0xEF »

coreyh14444 wrote: post #9

American living in Copenhagen here. We check all of these boxes. The entire channel that runs through town is swimmable thanks to decades of work cleaning it up. On a warm summer day, you could expect maybe 1000+ swimmers in the water in the city centre across all the locations. We also do Vinterbadere (Winter Bathing) throughout the year. The only time you can't swim is after a day or two of sustained rain and there…

Is there specific agencies or services that will help look into relocating? My wife and I visited briefly a few years ago and have not stopped thinking about it since. It was everything we wanted that North American cities just don't offer due to our heavy vehicle-centric urban planning.

Re: Swimmable Cities

#138

Post by vundercind »

omnimus wrote: post #45
boredtofears wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you think swimming isn’t a cultural thing in the US? Municipal pools are everywhere across the US - and practically a staple for southwest residences. The US produces some of the world’s greatest swimmers. It’s a part of school curriculum and while we don’t really have swimmable canal cities (like most of North America) there are plenty of opportunities to enjoy swimming.

I think for some reason USA has quite big percentage of people who cant swim. Compared to some countries where its part of mandatory education and thus the % is much lower.

It used to be pretty common for US schools to have a pool (often in the basement!) and teach swimming, but seems to have gotten less-so over time, I suppose because of the cost, and pressure from increasing costs in other areas.

I attended a couple schools that had pools in the basement that had been closed for a decade or more, and have heard of several others. The only one I know of that was still operational was in an old private school.

Re: Swimmable Cities

#139

Post by jodrellblank »

hayd wrote: post #110
tetris11 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

London has many historically swimmable waterways and canals. Unfortunately 14 years of deregulation by allowing companies to dump waste into rivers have rendered much of these beautiful waterways unswimmable.

Nonsense. What deregulation? You think rivers in the uk were pristine or even just cleaner 15 years ago? lol, they were not.

Lol, they were.

“In its evidence to the committee, the Environment Agency said that in 2021 the environmental performance of water companies was “at its lowest ever level” and the performance of most companies was declining.”” - https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/cleaning-up-failures-in-w...

“Sewage spills in the UK hit a record high in 2023, amplifying public anger at the state of the country's dirty rivers and the private companies responsible for the pollution, such as the country's biggest supplier, Thames Water.” - https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/uk-aims-curb-wa...

Re: Swimmable Cities

#140

Post by vilkkala »

It takes less than a minute to walk calmly from my front door in an apartment complex to a public beach in Tampere, Finland. In my neighbourhood, you just see random people walking on the sidewalk in bathrobes on their way to the beach or back. It's 15 minutes walk from the city center.
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