Water as Leverage Cartagena

Cartagena is working toward a future in which water becomes a shared asset for resilience, equity, and prosperity rather than a source of risk. The Water as Leverage – Cartagena project is driven by the collective activism of communities, institutions, and professionals who are demanding safer living conditions, environmental justice, and long-term climate adaptation for the city’s most vulnerable residents. By channeling this civic momentum into an integrated planning and design process, the project translates local knowledge and advocacy into concrete action. Through a multi-stakeholder, multidisciplinary approach that combines spatial design, water management, governance, and finance, Water as Leverage identifies strategic pilot areas and develops scalable, implementable solutions. Enabled by collaboration between Colombia and the Netherlands and led by a consortium including Felixx, Witteveen+Bos, Aqua & Terra Consultores Asociados S.A.S., Universidad de Cartagena – Colombia, and CSC Strategy & Finance, the project provides a clear roadmap from community-driven ambition to investable projects that strengthen climate resilience and improve everyday life in Cartagena.   Multifunctional project bringing urban agendas together ©Felixx   CHALLENGES From its origins to the present day, Cartagena is a city shaped by water. Its beaches, canals, lagoons, wetlands, and bay have defined its identity, economy, and cultural heritage. Water continues to generate employment, drive tourism, and sustain valuable ecological assets. However, what makes Cartagena special also makes it vulnerable. The city faces severe and increasing water-related challenges that affect daily life, infrastructure, and long-term development. These include social inequality, housing informality, and limited urban services, all exacerbated by the escalating impacts of climate change. Extreme weather events such as high tides, tropical storms, torrential rainfall, and rising sea levels are increasing in both intensity and frequency. This trend is expected to accelerate, posing significant risks to environmental quality, public safety, and community wellbeing. These challenges are intensified by insufficient water infrastructure and limited urban management capacity, increasing exposure in vulnerable areas.   Human scale of climate challenges ©Felixx
   The Water as Leverage programme proposes a series of strategic locations with high potential, representing the diversity of vulnerabilities and opportunities that water presents to the city. Understanding these representative areas is essential to rebuilding a productive relationship between Cartagena and its water systems.   ROOTS OF CARTAGENA Water as Leverage encourages the city to rethink its relationship with water and to envision a resilient future. Cartagena’s prosperity and the wellbeing of its inhabitants depend on the city’s ability to adapt to change and on the governance capacity required to support that adaptation. The proposal Roots of Cartagena explores water through seven interconnected dimensions that define how water shapes the city physically, socially, and economically:The Natural City; Water & Resilience; Water & Governance; Water & Urban Challenges; Water as a Sociocultural Determinant; Water as an Economic Driver; and Water as a Financial Resource.   Strategic diagram of the Roots of Cartagena proposal ©Felixx   These roots help explain not only the origins of Cartagena’s vulnerabilities, but also the value of water as a generator of solutions. They enable a shift from viewing water as a source of risk to recognising it as a catalyst for urban, ecological, social, and economic regeneration.   Cartagena’s nature, socio-cultural, urban and economy existing challenges ©Felixx   Analysis across the seven roots has led to five guiding principles for design and development: Cartagena requires a comprehensive water management strategy grounded in hydrodynamics, topography, and ecosystem dynamics that extend beyond the city limits. Resilient priority areas should be defined through shared natural, social, and economic characteristics, rather than risk levels alone. Water should be leveraged as a driver of wider urban and social improvement, enabling strategic projects that address social, economic, urban, and ecological vulnerabilities simultaneously. Planning must integrate a long-term masterplan with short-term strategic actions to ensure continuity and delivery. Interventions should be multifunctional, generating broad benefits and creating diverse investment opportunities to maximise value for communities.   AWARENESS, EDUCATION & SCALABILITY The geography of Cartagena plays a key role in the quality of life of its inhabitants. For this reason, a core ambition of Roots of Cartagena is to develop solutions that avoid displacement, ensuring that residents remain active participants in the planning, implementation, and long-term maintenance of interventions. Stakeholder workshops have enabled co-creation and transparent dialogue, ensuring that designs are equitable, technically robust, and aligned with environmental restoration and sustainable urban development goals. Scientific research is combined with local knowledge, community values, and cultural practices, forming a stakeholder framework that allocates resources, manages risk, and strengthens collaboration.   Co-design session community and stakeholders ©La Cifra Impar   To support long-term resilience, the proposal includes local training centres where residents can learn about water management, household adaptation, recycling practices, and public space use. These facilities are complemented by water squares, towers, and playgrounds, transforming water from a source of risk into a shared community asset. The design concepts aim to deliver integrated, replicable, and financially viable solutions that translate long-term planning ambitions into implementable projects. Water-related challenges, including drainage failure, urban flooding, and water pollution, are widespread throughout the canal system surrounding the Ciénaga de la Virgen. The selected intervention areas represent typical canal conditions found across the wider territory, allowing the project to function as a pilot for scalable replication in adjacent sub-basins and neighbourhoods. By addressing challenges and testing solutions here, the project generates lessons that can be efficiently applied elsewhere, establishing a citywide framework for resilient water management. DESIGN CONCEPTS & PROJECT PHASES Building on an initial analysis of Cartagena’s challenges and opportunities, the first phase of the programme focused on the development of conceptual designs through a participatory process. Local knowledge was central to this phase, supported by a series of technical and financial workshops that helped shape context-specific and feasible solutions. Guided by the seven roots, six water-based design concepts were developed across strategic areas of the city: the Marbella–Crespo Coastal Area, La Boquilla Coastal Area, the Canal Zone, the Stream Zone, the Area of Caños and Lakes, and the Bay Zone.   slider Visualisations of the six water-based conceptual designs ©Felixx   The methodology enabled a comprehensive multifunctionality assessment that addressed water management while creating opportunities for local entrepreneurship, ecological restoration, and social life. The concepts improve safety, accessibility, green infrastructure, and overall ecosystem performance, while strengthening the cultural and spatial identity of each district through education, recreation, cultural expression, and social inclusion.   Identified benefits Canal Zone and Caños and Lakes Area ©Felixx   Following extensive community and expert review, the strongest concepts were selected to advance into Phase 2 for detailed technical and financial development. This phase concluded with the delivery of pre-feasibility studies for projects aimed at strengthening Cartagena’s climate resilience.   Plan View of the Caños and Lakes Area ©Felixx   Phase 3 will build on these outcomes by further refining selected concepts and delivering detailed designs and implementation roadmaps for public space adaptation, water infrastructure improvements, and mangrove restoration. Updates on Phase 3, as well as the pre-feasibility study reports, are available on the Water as Leverage Cartagena website.   WATER AS LEVERAGE Water as Leverage is a Dutch-founded public–private partnership programme launched in 2018. It addresses climate challenges identified in the Paris Agreement and contributes to a number of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Team selection was conducted by RVO in consultation with the Water as Leverage Cartagena Advisory Board, which includes the Mayor’s Office of Cartagena, Invest International, the Netherlands Embassy, and the Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management. Water as Leverage Cartagena is facilitated by the Government of the Netherlands, in partnership with the Alcaldía de Cartagena de Indias, Colombian national authorities, and national and international strategic partners. The programme is financed through the Partners for Water 2022–2027 and PSD Toolkit programmes.