Vision & Leadership

Nourish a collaborative space to consistently assess progress, intentionally develop leadership, collectively overcome challenges, and celebrate successes 

A decade ago, the Greater New Orleans Urban Water Plan put forth a new vision for living with water in our region. While the overall concept is now largely embraced by stakeholders across sectors, the recommendation to create a regional authority charged with overseeing implementation has not come to fruition. The context for large-scale regional planning and resilience has also shifted, and today we face increasing threats to our communities, including but not limited to heat vulnerability, compound flooding, groundwater challenges, saltwater intrusion, and more. Ten years after the Greater New Orleans Urban Water Plan, it's time to revisit and potentially update the vision, and solidify leadership that builds the collective momentum for implementation of improved water management along with other resilience and adaptation solutions.

Background

“Everyone has such different expectations of what green infrastructure should do, but with all the challenges, it feels like success often ends up being defined as just getting a project done.”

- Summit Participant

Insights & Opportunities

Tremendous progress has been made in the field of urban water management in Greater New Orleans over the last 10 years. Celebrating the best successes builds momentum towards more and bigger successes. 

There are very real challenges and frustrations in this field that must be honestly identified, transparently confronted, and collectively worked through to maintain momentum. If a particular organizational structure, personnel grouping, or policy is impeding progress, we must have the courage to change it. This is still a developing field, and we need a place to evaluate efforts openly and realistically – to celebrate success and innovate based on failures – while maintaining positive momentum. 

The incredible diversity of stakeholders and perspectives – small and large businesses, academics, philanthropy, nonprofits, community-based organizations and so many more - dedicated to urban water management is a regional strength, and Urban Water @ 10 has shown that bringing stakeholders together builds power for the movement.

Urban water management solutions often support progress on other widely accepted needs (i.e., sustainable insurance rates, reducing heat vulnerability), but the connection is often not understood or examined. 

There is a clear need for leadership training opportunities to foster the next generation of civic and professional leaders in this space, and there are models to build from. 

We must remain ambitious in our vision while staying grounded, and we must rapidly move from planning to implementation. For instance, the impressive scale of innovation envisioned in the Gentilly Resilience District leaves it vulnerable to feeling like an accomplishment before the projects are implemented and operating. For many projects, the time gap between visioning/planning and implementation is too long and filled with political posturing, thus undermining public trust and support for necessary innovations in water management. 

Build a broader vision for a holistic approach to regional resilience projects that is rooted in living with water and expanded to manage all hazards and bring multiple benefits to everyone, especially those communities that are most vulnerable due to histories of systemic injustices

Create and maintain a collective framework for assessing progress on improving urban water management and resilience that includes an intuitive yet in-depth system of metrics that can be used across a wide diversity of stakeholder groups 

Establish a consistent collaborative space for analyzing metrics, pursuing a shared learning agenda, driving innovation, and celebrating success

Communicate collective progress and impact to the public and all stakeholders in a coordinated, easy-to-understand way that connects urban water management to the myriad positive outcomes it supports

Accelerate progress between planning and implementation so that the public can see a direct connection, thus building momentum for bigger, more holistic plans and their rapid implementation

Build on the success of efforts like the Urban Water Series to grow the capacity of all stakeholders in this work, develop more leaders in the field, and connect with similar efforts and leaders around the globe 

Example Projects

  • Urban Water @ 10

    Urban Water @ 10 was launched in July 2023 by Greater New Orleans Foundation, GNO, Inc., and the Tulane University ByWater Institute to convene regional actors in the urban water sector for accelerated implementation of the Greater New Orleans Urban Water Plan.

    Learn More

  • EPA Urban Waters Partnership in New Orleans

    The New Orleans/Lake Pontchartrain Urban Waters Federal Partnership Pilot project strives to support local restoration and reconnect communities with their waterways by improving coordination among federal agencies and community. Goals include enabling safe public access, restoring essential facilities and structures, and providing environmental education to the community.

    Learn More

Tell us how you are working to advance this priority or submit another example project