Water BOOST Enabling Innovation for Future Ready Cities 2025

Images: Unsplash+, Getty Images Disclaimer This document is published by the World Economic Forum as a contribution to a project, insight area or interaction. The findings, interpretations and conclusions expressed herein are a result of a collaborative process facilitated and endorsed by the World Economic Forum but whose results do not necessarily represent the views of the World Economic Forum, nor the entirety of its Members, Partners or other stakeholders. © 2025 World Economic Forum. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system.Contents Foreword Executive summary Introduction 1 Unlocking water innovation 1.1 The need for urban water innovation 1.2 Limitations of existing frameworks 1.3 Methodology: Building a systems-based approach 1.4 Case-study cities: A diverse testing ground 1.5 Stakeholder engagement and co-design 2 Water-BOOST: A systems toolkit for scaling water innovation 2.1 Mapping the water innovation ecosystem 2.2 Water-BOOST principles 3 Water innovation ecosystems in practice: City-level insights 3.1 San Francisco 3.2 Valencia 3.3 Singapore 3.4 Accra 3.5 Barcelona 3.6 Bengaluru 4 From mapping to strategy: Operationalizing Water-BOOST 4.1 Cross-comparison of cities 4.2 Cross-city reflections and emerging impact areas 4.3 Scaling and future directions 4.4 What Water-BOOST teaches Conclusion: Aligning systems to accelerate innovation Appendix Contributors Endnotes3 4 6 8 8 9 10 11 12 15 15 17 22 22 24 25 27 30 32 34 34 36 39 40 41 42 44 49 Water-BOOST: Enabling Innovation for Future-Ready Cities 2