About us
Creating new aquatic recreation opportunities close to home
Creating healthy local waterways; that's the future Sydney Water and our partners are bringing to life through Urban Plunge™. We want to support healthy waterways for swimming, paddling, wading, boating, kayaking, canoeing, stand-up paddle boarding and fishing throughout Greater Sydney.
What is Urban Plunge?
Imagine a world-class city where everyone can enjoy clean, natural waterways close to home.
Sydney Water's Urban Plunge program is supporting councils and other partners to establish more aquatic recreation sites in the rivers, creeks, lakes, and harbour inlets across the city.
Our expertise and the partnerships we have established make it easier and faster to activate new sites in waterways.
A top priority for Sydneysiders
With over 5 million customers across Greater Sydney, we want to ensure we are working on projects that matter to our community.
To shape Sydney Water's priorities for 2025 to 2030, we spent 2 years talking to our customers to understand what they want. They told us that maintaining clean, safe waterways and water recreational areas by reducing pollution was their third-ranked priority, right behind maintaining safe and clean drinking water and ensuring bills remain affordable.
Urban Plunge is directly responding to these customer expectations by supporting safe swimming and aquatic recreation in natural waterways. We're also working on actions that reduce pollution and improve the health of our waterways, to make swimming possible in more locations.
We have listened to your priorities for healthy and environmental protection
Improving our waterways and protecting the environment is a key element of Sydney Water's strategy and our vision of creating a better life for all Sydneysiders with world-class water services.
We have refined our commitments to healthy waterways and environmental protection through over 2 years of engagement with state and local government, councillors and our customers.
- 10 stakeholder workshops
- 38 hours of stakeholder engagement
- 24 customer forums and workshops
- 394 First Nations customers consulted
- 220 stakeholders
- 13,000 residential customers
- 68 hours of facilitated customer engagement
- 3,527 culturally and linguistically diverse customers.
It's not just about swimming
Clean waterways are at the heart of Sydney Water's vision of creating a better life with world-class water services. We know that people who enjoy our waterways will become champions for waterway health and protection. As new water-based recreation sites open, there will be a greater incentive for the government to invest in waterway health.
Recent studies reinforce why Urban Plunge is an essential program:
- Sydneysiders love water, but not everyone lives near a beach.
- Temperatures are rising, and areas around waterways can provide a cool refuge where friends and family can gather on hot days.
- Your health, and those with access to healthy waterways have improved physical and mental health.
It's a global movement
In 2024, Sydney Water became a signatory to the first-ever international Swimmable Cities Charter, joining organisations from 49 cities and 21 countries across the globe who share a common vision for safe, healthy and swimmable urban waterways.
To see what's happening around the world, visit the Swimmable Cities website.
Our partners
Making more waterways swimmable takes time, commitment and collaboration. We have been working with NSW government agencies, councils, universities and other partners to bring our vision for swimming and waterway recreation to life.
If you want to partner with us, you can find out more.
Behind the Urban Plunge logo
Our logo was designed by Jason Douglas of Dalmarri. It represents the relationship of First Nations peoples to our lands and waterways:
"Water is our connection, our most important sustainable resource. Water brings everything to life. This artwork connects the fresh and saltwater people. The circles represent the meeting places mobs are spiritually connected to, where we swim, drink, fish, watch and cleanse. The wavy lines relate to the flow of water. Our environment depends on it and, as First Nations people have done for thousands of years, all of us now have a responsibility to look after and care for it."
Riverwatch™, Urban Plunge and their respective logos are trademarks of Sydney Water.