Water as Leverage, Cartagena

Water as Leverage, Cartagena

Water as catalyst for urban justice

A city shaped by water, under pressure from it

Cartagena is working toward a future in which water becomes a shared asset for resilience, equity, and prosperity rather than a source of risk. Located on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, the city has been shaped for centuries by its waterways. Yet what makes Cartagena special also makes it vulnerable, with water-related challenges intensified by climate change, housing informality, and limited urban services.

In response, Colombia and the Netherlands launched Water as Leverage – Cartagena, a public–private partnership addressing climate challenges aligned with the Paris Agreement and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Driven by the collective activism and participation of communities, institutions, and professionals demanding safer living conditions, environmental justice, and long-term climate adaptation, the programme channels civic momentum into an integrated planning and design process.

The project takes an inclusive approach, considering multiple perspectives—nature, water & resilience, vulnerable communities, urban planning, transport, governance, and finance—while directly engaging stakeholders in co-creation. The Water as Leverage approach identifies strategic locations across the city that represent the diversity of water-related vulnerabilities and opportunities present in Cartagena. These representative areas function as pilots, enabling targeted interventions while establishing a scalable framework for citywide resilience. Understanding these landscapes is essential to rebuilding a productive and equitable relationship between Cartagena and its water systems.

Roots of Cartagena

Our proposal, Roots of Cartagena, explores water as a structuring force shaping the city physically, socially, and economically. A core ambition is to develop solutions that avoid displacement, ensuring residents remain active participants in planning, implementation, and long-term maintenance. Comprehensive landscape analysis integrates hydrodynamics, topography, ecological networks, urban form, social equity, and governance to reveal how climate pressures, informal development, and fragmented management intersect spatially, reframing water from a sectoral problem into a multifunctional landscape system driving resilience, inclusion, and economic vitality.

From this analysis, guiding principles were defined to steer design and implementation. Six water-based design concepts were developed across key zones—including coastal areas, canals, streams, lakes, and the bay—emphasising Nature-based Solutions such as wetland restoration, mangrove rehabilitation, natural drainage systems, and green–blue public spaces. Local knowledge and technical workshops ensured solutions are context-specific and feasible. Following extensive community and expert review, the strongest concepts advance to the next phases for detailed technical and financial development.

From concept to investable project

This methodology enables multifunctional interventions that enhance water management while creating opportunities for local entrepreneurship, ecological restoration, social life, and cultural expression. By improving safety, accessibility, and ecosystem performance, Roots of Cartagena demonstrates how landscape-led analysis and design can deliver scalable, equitable pathways toward climate-resilient urban development.

Working together

Water as Leverage Cartagena is a Dutch-Colombian partnership, facilitated by the Government of the Netherlands in collaboration with the Alcaldía de Cartagena and Colombian national authorities financed through the Partners for Water 2022–2027 and PSD Toolkit programmes. The consortium brings together spatial design, engineering, ecological expertise, financial strategy, and academic research.

Felixx led the spatial strategy and design process, weaving Natural Intelligence into a framework shaped by civic activism and technical rigour. The collaboration was built on the conviction that the challenges cities like Cartagena face are too complex and too urgent to solve from one discipline, one country, or one side of the table.