Swimmable Cities Boost Climate Resilience & Increase Life Quality

“Safe, healthy and swimmable waterways should be accessible to all people,” according to Swimmable Cities. Founded in 2024, the alliance now includes 125 organisations across 72 cities, including Amsterdam, Johannesburg, London, Los Angeles, Melbourne, New York, Santiago and Seoul. It encourages local municipalities to clean urban waterways for safe public swimming – spurred by Paris’s mission to clean up the river Seine for the 2024 Olympics.

This year, people can swim in the Seine from July 5 to August 31 in three official bathing spots across Paris. All swimming sites will be supervised by lifeguards and access will be free.

In the Netherlands, Rotterdam opened Rijnhaven Floating Park in May 2024 in a former industrial harbour. The park, set for total completion in 2028, will include a public beach and green spaces. “With rising heat stress, we must adapt, or people will swim where it’s unsafe,” said Lucas Vroom, project manager at Rotterdam Council.

In New York, non-profit +Pool is constructing a floating pool in the Hudson River. Designed to filter over one million gallons of river water through its walls daily without chemicals, the pool is set to open in May 2026 and will welcome lane swimmers, families and swimming clubs.

Elsewhere, advocacy groups, like Flussbad in Berlin and Swim Drink Fish in Canada, are campaigning to clean local waterways to create free third spaces for citizens and help people cope with extreme temperatures.