Launched on the eve of the 2024 Paris Olympics, Swimmable Cities has grown into a global platform for transforming urban waterways.
Our alliance is supporting a grassroots movement with 153 diverse signatory organisations from 83 cities and towns, and 30 countries around the world.
We champion the Right to Swim and Nature Rights. Let’s make waves of positive change together!
Institutional Partners
Let’s work together through a strategic institutional partnership to mobilise resources and create a transformational global platform serving the international urban swimming movement.
Corporate Partners
Let’s maximise exposure and impact for your organisation while contributing to the essential resources required to bring the SC2.0, its platform, programs, programs and events to life.
Knowledge Partners
Let’s explore how we can share, document and publish knowledge, so that gaps can be addressed, opportunities grown and change accelerated.
Media Partners
Let’s maximise visibility of urban swimming, movement actors, and their power to transform urban communities and waterways, using a variety of channels and mediums.
Steps that you can take to get involved!
1. Join the Alliance
Make a public commitment to stand for your community's Right to Swim and Nature Rights.
2. Join our Community of Practice
Connect with international expertise, as we learn and share with municipalities around the world.
3. Join our Workshops
Tailored support for cities starting their urban swimming journeys or taking it to the next level.
The Swimmable Cities alliance has been catalysed by grassroots organisations from around the world, but we're also now working together to drive international cross-sector collaboration.
We made a SPLASH in Rotterdam!
Over 200 representatives from over 20 countries took 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 our international alliance, promoted 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 built on the momentum catalysed by athletes swimming in the River Seine for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
We're proud to be working with a range of Partners that share our vision for transforming urban waterways and creating better, more liveable futures for communities.
Making Peace with Nature
Promoting the Rights to Life
Empowering People in Practice
Swimming towards Sustainable Development
Investing in a Better Future for All
Connecting South, North, East & West
FOUNDATIONAL VALUES
1. The Right to Swim
Safe, healthy and swimmable waterways should be accessible to all people.
2. Nature Rights (One Health)
Swimmable urban waterways are vital to the liveability of cities and communities, as shared civic places that promote the health of people (physically, mentally, spiritually) and the health of Mother Earth.
3. Urban Swimming Culture
Urban swimming culture is a unique expression of life in cities and communities, reflecting the distinct interplay of sports, recreation and tourism in each given place, as well as natural and cultural heritage.
4. Water is Sacred
Urban swimming should celebrate natural waterways as living, integrated entities that nurture communities; promoting universal accessibility and peaceful coexistence inclusive of religious, cultural and gender diversity.
ENABLING CONDITIONS
5. Rewriting the Rules (Policy)
Urban waterway swimming should become part of a new status quo in public access standards, challenging accepted conventions such as industrial uses and stormwater pollution, with governing authorities swiftly amending legal and regulatory frameworks to enable citizens access to its benefits.
6. Democratic Participation in Swimming Places
Urban swimming places and experiences should be planned, designed, made and operated through inclusive, integrated water management approaches; with managers ensuring universal access via community-led programs for learning how to swim in natural waterways and ecological literacy.
7. Reconnection & Resilience
Urban swimming places and experiences should be invested in as an innovative way to enable resilient communities to adapt and thrive in a changing global climate, environment and economy.
SHARING BENEFITS
8. New Economic Opportunities
Urban swimming development models should balance social, cultural, ecological and economic values, creating new jobs, careers and livelihoods in regenerative professions and industries.
9. Sharing Wellbeing Benefits, Culture & Knowledge
Urban swimming should create wellbeing benefits to local citizens, ecosystems and economies; enhanced by the respectful sharing of Indigenous, traditional and Western water culture knowledge.
NEXT GENERATION
10. Stewardship for Today, Tomorrow & Future Generations
Urban swimmers are stewards responsible for protecting the health of their local waterways, working alongside Mother Earth’s closest carers, such as Indigenous peoples, rangers and waterkeepers as well as urbanists, architects, social changemakers, educators and policy-makers.
Swimmers jumped off of a dock during sanctioned swimming in the Charles River. / JESSICA RINALDI/GLOBE STAFF
We're thinking local and acting global, inspired by the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.
Note: Why ‘Mother Earth’? Just as the UN Global Biodiversity Framework recognises voices of Indigenous Peoples and the rights of Nature, so do we.
It takes a global village to grow a movement! Our signatories represent an incredible diversity of stakeholders - from local activists and community swimming groups to municipalities and government agencies, civil society organisations, businesses, universities and cultural institutions.
Our alliance is made up of 125 organisations across, 72 cities and towns, across 27 countries:
AUSTRALIA (Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney), AUSTRIA (Vienna, Zwerndorf), BELGIUM (Antwerp, Brussels, Ghent), BRAZIL (Rio de Janeiro), CANADA (Hamilton, Oakville, Sudbury, Toronto), CHILE (Santiago), CHINA (Beijing), COLOMBIA (Cartagena), CZECH REPUBLIC (Prague), DENMARK (Copenhagen), ENGLAND (Brighton, Bromsgrove, Cambridge, Liverpool, London, Newcastle upon Tyne, Norwich, Plymouth, Oxford, Stroud), FINLAND (Helsinki, Lohja), FRANCE (Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Metz, Paris, Port), GERMANY (Berlin, Dresden, Esslingen am Neckar, Munich, Stuttgart), HUNGARY (Budapest), INDIA (Goa), IRELAND (Cork, Dublin), ITALY (Imola, Rome), LITHUANIA (Vilnius), NETHERLANDS (Amsterdam, Arnhem, The Hague, Rotterdam), SLOVAKIA (Bratislava), SLOVENIA (Ljubljana), SOUTH AFRICA (Johannesburg), SOUTH KOREA (Seoul), SWITZERLAND (Basel), USA (Annapolis, Baltimore, Cambridge, Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, New York, Portland, San Francisco, Sheboygan, St Paul, Washington DC), WALES (Swansea)
This includes the following Municipalities:
City of Rotterdam (Netherlands), City of Yarra (Melbourne, AUS), Alsergrund District (Vienna, AUT), City of Annapolis (MD, USA), City of Budapest (HUN), City of Sheboygan (USA), City of Vilnius (LTU) and City of Portland (USA).
We also have some individuals who have now signed the Charter: Dr Naina Gupta, Scott Shilton & Fiona Gibson.
FOR A FULL LIST OF SIGNATORIES, CLICK HERE (Updated June 2025).
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Matt Sykes
Regeneration Projects (Convenor)
Ana Mumladze Detering
Pan European Urban Bathing Network & SVDK Vienna
Chris Romer-Lee
Studio Octopi, Thames Baths & Future Lidos
Sibylle van der Walt
Metz Ville d'Eau
Tim Edler
Flussbad Berlin
Jerome Castex
Libres Nageurs
Adriaan van der Linden
Leisurelands
(* SUMMIT CO-ORGANISER)
The Swimmable Cities alliance is emerging and growing through the collective efforts of experts in urban swimming environment design, public mediation, community building, policy, safety, public health, waterway restoration and water quality.
Like all global movements, there are many actors and different hubs of activity, spread out over years and decades. The Swimmable Cities Handbook (published by Regeneration Projects in October 2023) captures some of this spirit and provides an introductory tool for newcomers to urban swimming. The Handbook helped spark the formation of an international Steering Group in February 2024. From there, we set about creating the Swimmable Cities Charter and sharing good news stories from our social media channels. We're now working towards one of our goals for 2025, convening a Swimmable Cities Summit in Paris to bring together experts, actors, activists and decision-makers. Stay tuned for details!
General Enquiries
Regional Enquiries
Europe
adriaanvanderlinden@leisurelands.nl
UK
Asia-Pacific
matt@regenprojects.earth
Americas
info@pluspool.org
Africa
romy@waterforthefuture.co.za
