Like many coastal cities, Colombia’s city of Cartagena faces major challenges concerning climate adaptation. For instance, more than a quarter of the city could be affected by flooding by 2040.

As part of the collaboration ‘Water as Leverage Cartagena – Construyendo con el Agua’, two international multidisciplinary teams have started co-designing solutions for water and climate related challenges. Workshops with various stakeholders provided new insights on how to tackle these challenges and improve the city’s water system.

Water as Leverage Cartagena draws on the knowledge of two consortia comprising of a diverse group of experts from the Netherlands, Colombia and other international partners to develop projects that address the city’s water and climate adaptation challenges. In order to increase water security in Cartagena the main goal for these two multidisciplinary teams is to generate innovative and inclusive conceptual designs, as well as to develop project proposals to a pre-feasibility level and transform them into ready-to-tender projects.

Co-creating innovative conceptual designs

Local Design Workshops

On 6 and 7 July 2023, representatives from various sectors, such as academia, private enterprises, NGOs, governments and residents from Cartagena came together to participate in the second Local Design Workshop. Together, they proposed ideas for potential projects to foster sustainable urban planning for climate resilience and integrated water management.

Participants sharing their perspectives during the second Local Design Workshop

Opportunities and challenges

In order to jointly design suitable solutions, the teams highlighted the opportunities and challenges of Cartagena’s water management. One of the opportunities, they noted, is the city’s own ecosystem which includes characteristics similar to other cities such as Venice, San Francisco, Amsterdam and Rio de Janeiro. The city is surrounded by water, comprising of lakes, wetlands, canals and coastline. Since all of it is interconnected, it makes for a unique aquatic landscape.

Given that the impact of climate change is projected to increase the drought and flood vulnerability of the city, the main challenge seems to be to try and coexist with water. In order to do this, it is necessary to reconsider how water functions as the center of urban planning and the engine of economic and social transformation.

Water as Leverage Cartagena

Co-creating water solutions

The central question during the workshops was ‘How can we rethink water as an opportunity, rather than a risk’. The two teams presented a range of innovative designs that included Nature Based Solutions and addressed the city’s challenges related to water and climate management. These designs not only considered flood reduction, but also social, economic and biodiversity issues. The participants shared their perspectives, as well as ideas about the problems in their areas. In the upcoming months, the multidisciplinary teams will continue their work on the conceptual designs and integrate the participants’ feedback. A third workshop is planned in September to present and discuss the revised designs based on the participants suggestions.

Group photo of the two teams and participants of the workshops

Water as Leverage Cartagena

Read more about the start of the Water as Leverage Cartagena project and the two multidisciplinary teams.

Enthusiastic panel discussions

“Every country has its own challenges, yet we all face similar problems. For example, too much water in one place and not enough in another. Together, we can develop solutions that benefit us all.” Said Sergio Lopez, the executive coordinator at the Argentinian Ministry of Public Works, getting to the heart of the matter. He and his fellow officials from Chili and Indonesia talked enthusiastically about their recent field trips to several Dutch NBS projects as part of a delegation from the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and national governments visiting the Netherlands ahead of the event.

Inspiring plenary presentations

The lively buzz in the room fell silent as keynote speakers Bregje van Wesenbeeck (Deltares) and Eva Pfannez (OOZE) took turns inspiring the 150 attendees with their vision on integrating NBS into spatial design. “We are in energy, infrastructure and agriculture transitions”, Bregje says, “but we’re taking on each transition individually. We need solutions that support all of these transitions together. NBS meets this ‘multifunctionality’ criterion.”

Eva emphasised the versatility of NBS by demonstrating how the Indian city of Chennai plans to face both flooding and water shortage by storing excess water in aquifers. A pilot project on a school site in the centre of Chennai provides valuable lessons learnt: “For instance, we now know that to mitigate risk, we need to incorporate the cost of client management, capacity building and awareness raising.”

Bregje supported this observation and pointed out the added significance of collaboration. “It helps to have diverse people at the table. Different people offer different perspectives and solutions. This encourages us to let go of tunnel visions.”

Valuable breakout sessions

Fortunately, the event featured plenty of diverse perspectives. The NBS professionals were given the opportunity to break out into small groups to delve deeper into the relevant themes and discuss them together. These were the key outcomes of those breakout sessions:

• NBS are likely to be an outcome of integrated and inclusive processes during project initiation.
• The IUCN NBS Standard can help to effectively design, implement and scale up NBS.
• An inclusive, bottom-up approach inspires more ownership, creativity and fun.
• Some stakeholders might seem more important than others, but in the decision-making process, you’ll need all of them.
• When implementing NBS, nature should be able to do its work. It should be managed as little as possible.
• Enhancing biodiversity is as important as improving the water safety for inhabitants.

Informal networking

As the final speaker concluded his remarks, the power of collaboration and the value of diverse voices were enthusiastically embraced. The attendees then continued to share their insights and look for collaborative opportunities. They did this at either the informal social gatherings or at the so-called ‘country tables’, which were set up for participants interested in water sectors in specific countries.

When the time came for the participants to head home, there was a collective sense of confidence. The NBS community came together, connected and listened to each other. Now it’s up to everyone to continue doing so. With the evident determination, innovative ideas and enough people at the table, this goal certainly is attainable.

Questions about the event or about Nature-based Solutions?

Please sent an e-mail to administratiepvw@pvw.nl, or reach out to Matthijs Zijlmans. 

The event brought together a diverse group of participants, including NBS practitioners, institutional representatives and other stakeholders from around the world. Through panel discussions, they explored the obstacles and opportunities associated with implementing NBS and shared best practices and lessons learned from successful projects.

Nature-based Solutions

Nature-based Solutions refer to the use of natural systems and processes to address environmental challenges, such as climate change, biodiversity loss and water management. NBS have gained recognition as sustainable alternatives to traditional infrastructure that use natural landscapes to improve water security.

The benefits of NBS for water management are numerous. For example, they can enhance water quality, regulate water flow, reduce the risk of floods and droughts and improve the resilience of water systems to climate change. Additionally, NBS can provide social and economic benefits and contribute to biodiversity protection. However, despite the inclusion of NBS in international agreements like the European Green Deal and the UN Global Biodiversity Framework, their implementation so far remains limited.

Partners for Water and Nature-Based Solutions

The Partners for Water programme places a strong emphasis on Nature-based Solutions (NBS) and encourages their implementation at scale through early-stage infrastructure projects. This approach has resulted in several successful projects, as well as many lessons learned. To shed light on this, Dennis van Peppen, Lead Water Programmes at RVO, joined the panel discussion where he shared insights into the challenges and solutions that the projects supported by the Partners for Water programme have faced.

Panel discussions

The panel discussions featured NBS practitioners and institutional representatives who shared their experiences and insights on implementing NBS, including representatives from the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management, World Wildlife Fund, the US army Corps of Engineers, Invest International, Partners for Water (part of RVO), Deltares, Van Oord and Arcadis. They covered a range of topics related to NBS implementation, including governance and institutional adoption, project management and monitoring and identifying barriers and enablers. Jane Madgwick, Wetlands International said: “We are in no doubt that if we are going to move quickly towards a safe and just world, it is necessary to put NBS first amongst the options for infrastructure. The best way to do that is in this kind of collaboration”. Thanks to the synergetic environment, the panelists were able share their successes and challenges with each other, enabling knowledge sharing and mutual learning.

Lifting the barriers for implementing Nature-based Solutions

André van Ommeren, from RVO: “As we learned this afternoon, it is all about commitment, working together over sectors, integration, and for that you need different partners, standing here on the stage…we are looking forward to the future and bringing NBS to the next stage.” Reflecting on an inspiring discussion, the key insights for implementing NBS are summarised below:

• Involve the multi-stakeholders throughout the whole process and bring them together around the table. From the private sector, financiers and investors, to contractors, locals and governments.
• Actively involve the community and local stakeholders by including them in the decision-making process, creating awareness of NBS’s valuable benefits, asking for their local knowledge and giving them ownership of the NBS. They will have to maintain the NBS in the future.
• Make the stakeholders aware of the different (in-)direct benefits coming from the implementation of NBS and bring forward the economic benefits of the case.
• Understand and take into account the different systems that are involved, like the biophysical, local and institutional systems.
• Aim for an iterative process: learn and improve through implementation, doing the work and evaluation. When there is no capacity for a large project, start with a small project and develop the bigger ones over time.
• Aim for long-term benefits and take into account the maintenance and monitoring of the NBS.
• Put time and effort into capacity building amongst governments and local stakeholders. Not only to create awareness and knowledge on what NBS can deliver and create an enabling political environment for embedding NBS, but also to train them to operate and maintain the NBS.
• Connect across different disciplines, sectors and partners. It is all about collaboration and working together.

Game changer for achieving SDGs

Lara Muller, from Invest International, described the collective thought of the panel discussions clearly: “If there is one thing that NBS also today proved is that it is all about collaboration and multi-disciplinary partnership in order to make it happen. On the ground but also on a higher institutional level. Having financiers, technical people, everybody with the heart in the right place in order to make this happen.” Maintaining this collaborative atmosphere, Nature-based Solutions might be the game-changer in achieving Sustainable Development Goals.

During the ‘The Power of Nature-based Solutions’ event, a promising coalition was formed for mainstreaming NBS. Read more about the collaborating organisations and their promised commitments here.

By voluntarily committing to the UN Water Action Agenda, these organisations are taking action to create a breakthrough in the application and implementation of NBS for water-related challenges. With the ultimate goal of making NBS a widely accepted practice by 2030, this coalition aims to drive meaningful change in the way we approach water-related issues and environmental sustainability.

Promised commitments

The coalition members are taking ownership of their responsibilities to mainstream NBS by voluntarily committing to:

• Being an NBS ambassador;
• Promoting the inclusion of NBS as a potential solution for societal challenges in the water sector;
• Presenting examples of how NBS solutions act as an alternative to traditional infrastructure approaches;
• Joining, supporting or creating fundamental and applied research projects to further develop NBS as a standard option; and
• Promoting, supporting or co-investing in enablers for the development of NBS, such as a sound business case and technical, ecological, social and system knowledge

Partners for Water and NBS

The launch of the coalition was organised by Team International Organisations (TIO) at the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) along with EcoShape. Being a part of the RVO and having a strong focus on the application of NBS, Partners for Water applauds this collaboration and is looking forward to impactful results.

Over the past few years, we have already been working closely together on a number of projects with coalition members Invest International, EcoShape and its consortium partners. A key focus within these collaborations has been on using and scaling up NBS to address water safety and water security.

Recent collaborations with Invest International and EcoShape

Both Invest International and EcoShape have been working together with Partners for Water on several initiatives in Indonesia. And some of EcoShape’s consortium partners have recently received funding from the Partners for Water subsidy scheme for various projects with local partners. These have included a study on using natural groundwater buffers in Colombia (Deltares) and a feasibility study for a flood prediction service in Malawi (RoyalHaskoningDHV).

Through these partnerships, the organisations have been able to leverage their expertise, for example on NBS, to address pressing water-related issues.

Action and follow-up

The coalition members will develop the details of their commitment to mainstream Nature-based Solutions further during and after the UN2023 Water Conference. The launch of the coalition is a starting point. Is your organization interested in contributing to mainstreaming NBS? Register your interest on the EcoShape website.