What does a Water Sensitive City look like in practice? Lessons from 9 cities in Europe and beyond
The WSC principles are reflected in various urban interventions that can serve as best practice examples for cities across the EU. These include, for instance, public squares that temporarily store stormwater during heavy rainfall (Rotterdam), a network of green roofs, permeable surfaces and rain gardens required through the planning system (Dublin), or a naturalised river corridor integrated into a public park (Singapore). But some of the features that make a city water sensitive are less immediately visible: governance arrangements, financing models, digital platforms, pricing mechanisms and ways of involving citizens.
A new report developed under the Urban Agenda for the EU Water Sensitive City Partnership by EUI expert Ana Contreras Escribano examines good practices from nine cities: Barcelona, Berlin, Dublin, Elche, Rotterdam and Tallinn in Europe, alongside Nanaimo, Singapore and Melbourne as international benchmarks.
The cases were selected to represent different geographical contexts, city sizes and governance structures, and to explore dimensions including infrastructure, citizen science and behavioural change, governance, digitalisation, financing and capacity building.
Water-sensitive infrastructure
Infrastructure is the most widely represented dimension across the nine case studies. The examples range from naturalised waterways and multifunctional public spaces to catchment-scale flood management and digitalised water networks. One common feature is the combination of green and grey infrastructure rather than reliance on either approach alone. The shared lesson across all infrastructure cases is that pilot projects with strong public visibility are the most effective pathway to scaling.
How can citizens become part of water-sensitive transformation?
The report also examines how data, citizen participation and incentives can influence the way people interact with urban water systems. Across the cases, however, sustaining citizen involvement remains difficult. Nanaimo, Berlin, Rotterdam and Melbourne all identify maintaining interest over time as an unresolved challenge, suggesting that engagement requires continued programming rather than one-off activities.
How do cities finance the transition to water sensitivity?
Cities not only need effective solutions, but also ways to recognise and fund benefits that extend beyond conventional water infrastructure. Financing is one of the areas where the nine cases differ most from fully self-sustaining tariff models to cities with no structured revenue mechanism for climate adaptation investment.
The analysis reveals the absence of co-benefit quantification frameworks as a key bottleneck. Across the cases, the report identifies the urgent need for a shared methodology for quantifying co-benefits (for monetising ecosystem services, biodiversity gains, heat reduction, and social cohesion), in order to unlock political prioritisation and private investment for water-sensitive infrastructure at scale.
What kind of governance makes a WSC possible?
The nine cases also demonstrate that water-sensitive transformation depends on how responsibilities are organised between institutions. Despite the different governance models, one difficulty appears across all nine cases: cross-departmental coordination, which is consistently cited as the biggest internal governance challenge, regardless of city size, country, or institutional model.
What role can data and digitalisation play?
The report finds considerable variation in digital maturity, ranging from operational digital twins to cities that are still developing their first integrated platforms. However, across the cases, the report identifies interoperability (connecting legacy systems, sharing information between departments and designing platforms that can serve multiple users) as the common challenge. The lesson is therefore not simply that a WSC needs more data, but that data needs to be connected to governance arrangements capable of using it.
Training and capacity building needs for becoming a Water Sensitive City
Training and capacity building is the thematic area where the gap between need and provision is most acute across the cities. All interviewees identified training as a priority, but structured, sustained training programmes specifically focused on water-sensitive urban design remain rare. The most cited preferred training formats across all nine cities are case-based learning and peer exchange.
Capacity building needs include cross-departmental water governance, quantifying the wider benefits of nature-based solutions, citizen engagement and co-design, financing, digital integration and catchment-scale planning.
Conclusions of the report
How to strengthen citizen participation and drive behaviour change?
A separate Citizen Science Readiness Scan, developed under Action 7 – Community Engagement, looks at how citizen science and behavioural change can support water-sensitive transformation. It maps more than 20 initiatives and combines this with evidence from the nine city case studies.
Its main finding is that participation alone is not enough. The strongest approaches combine meaningful involvement, visible feedback on the results of citizen action, and links to public policy or decision-making. Financial incentives and real-time data also tend to produce more sustained behavioural change than awareness campaigns alone. The report also stresses that cities need the right conditions in place: dedicated staff, reliable data, trusted community partners, long-term funding and mechanisms that connect citizen participation with municipal decisions.
The broader lesson is that a Water Sensitive City is not only one where citizens receive information, but one where they can participate in shaping solutions and see how their actions contribute to tangible outcomes.
Within the framework of the Water Sensitive City Partnership, the Good Practices and Capacity Building Pathways for Water Sensitive Cities and the Citizen Science Readiness Scan reports were developed under Action 6 – Knowledge and Capacity Building, led by LEITAT - Applied Technology Research & Innovation Center (Spain) and Action 7 – Community Engagement, led by the City of Enschede - Gemeente Enschede (the Netherlands)
You can access the full reports and related resources below: