Challenge Announcement: New York City and Copenhagen Launches Dual Call for Innovative Approaches and Technologies to Address Stormwater Management

NEW YORK – The New York State Department of Environmental Protection (NYC DEP), in partnership with Access Cities, today launched the Urban Water Vision Challenge for new and innovative and scalable ideas, technologies, and approaches to discover how stormwater can be successfully captured and treated to optimize benefits, reduce risks to public health and promote co-benefits.

When Hurricane Sandy hit New York in 2012, it posed significant challenges to NYC DEP and particularly its wastewater treatment infrastructure. Since then, the City has finalized ambitious new infrastructure plans to various initiatives to strategically manage stormwater. As stormwater flows, it sweeps up pollutants such as oils, chemicals, sediments, pathogens and trash. Rather than being absorbed naturally into the ground, much of New York City’s stormwater eventually flows into storm drains or catch basins, and from there into the sewer system.

The overall challenge question is:

“How can innovative stormwater treatment and reuse practices help urban areas address the challenge of flooding and recreational water quality exacerbated by shifts in rain patterns caused by climate change?”

While the ultimate goal of the challenge is to identify and pilot innovative stormwater treatment and reuse solutions, it is important to consider the opportunities and challenges for implementation. New York City and Copenhagen also hope to gain a better understanding of how to manage the contaminants found in stormwater that can pose issues to public health and the environment, comply with current guidelines, and overcome other barriers to achieve the desired benefits of proposed stormwater treatment and reuse practices.

Since 2015, New York City and Copenhagen have been working together to exchange knowledge on solutions to shared climate challenges, and now, this partnership is seeking insight into ways that both cities can store and treat excess stormwater.

To learn more and to join the challenge register HERE.

Join the kick-off webinar

On February 23, New York City and City of Copenhagen host a kick-off webinar where the challenges will be elaborated to provide a better understanding of the solutions they are looking for. Additionally, the webinar will provide relevant information about the challenge program for the participating companies.

Register for the kick-off webinar HERE.

About Access Cities

Access Cities is an international, public-private project, which aims to strengthen sustainable urban development in five project cities: New York City, Singapore, Munich and the Danish cities of Copenhagen and Aarhus. The project connects actors working with sustainable urban development in the pursuit of game-changing solutions to common issues confronting cities.

Interested in knowing more about urban water opportunities in the US?

Download the Urban Water roadmap, to discover the latest trends, strategies and initiatives within the New York market.

Download the Urban Water roadmap HERE.