Over 150 Signatories Unite Under New Urban Waterways Global Charter And International Athletes Take To The Water At World’s First Swimmable Cities Summit In Rotterdam.

Over 200 representatives from over 20 countries take to the water to mark the world’s first summit uniting a growing urban swimming movement, celebrating the Right to Swim and Nature Rights. The summit, less than a year into the foundation of the international alliance, is promoting bold international action for waterway health, climate resilience, community wellbeing and urban waterfront regeneration. Held in Rotterdam’s Rijnhaven, home to a floating park and designated swimming area, the Swimmable Cities Summit builds on the momentum catalysed by athletes swimming in the River Seine for the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Special guests include Rotterdam’s Vice Mayor Pascal Lansink-Bastemeijer, Olympian Toby Robinson (Team Great Britain) and ultramarathon swimmer Katie Pumphrey (Baltimore). A three-day programme of presentations, workshops and swimming breaks brings together government, grassroots and business leaders to work on the next wave of the urban swimming movement.

As part of the programme, the Swimmable Cities alliance launches an international research initiative to establish a global baseline for the swimmability of urban waterways worldwide. The ambitious project will involve interdisciplinary collaboration across environmental science, urban planning, public health, and community engagement to establish ‘swimmability’ as an indicator for urban liveability; with specific criteria to benchmark waterway health, accessibility, biodiversity, and social impact. The process will allow cities to measure progress, share best practices, and accelerate the transformation of polluted or neglected waterways into safe and swimmable public spaces.

While cities face the challenges of increasing urbanisation, climate change and biodiversity loss, communities are rediscovering and reclaiming their rivers and harbours, not least through the international urban swimming movement. But many of the world’s urban waterways remain unsafe, unhealthy and inaccessible for both urban swimmers and wildlife. There is an urgent need for better collaboration around improvement strategies and, crucially, better data to determine the ‘swimmability’ of the world’s urban waterways.

KEY THEMES OF THE SUMMIT:

1. The Right to Swim & Nature Rights (Governance)
2. The Art of Swimming Places (Design)
3. Clean Up Our Act (Waterway Restoration)
4. Urban Swimming Life (Community)
5. Public-Private Partnerships (Investment)
6. Water Literacy (Education)
7. Water Diplomacy (International Cooperation)

By convening a collaborative forum to share challenges, solutions and insights between cities and disciplines, the Summit is contributing to the fast-tracked adoption of best practices.

Another of the Summit’s aims is to empower decision-makers during the 2021-2030 UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, a programme which aims to prevent, halt and reverse the degradation of ecosystems across the world’s continents and oceans.

As cities renegotiate their social contracts with the waterways that sustain them, Swimmable Cities is providing a fresh, whole-of-society approach to urban development.