🏆 "Regional strategies" category: The “Eau en ville Initiative”: From a paradigm shift to a change in practices / Office cantonal de l'eau - Switzerland
🏆 "Multi-stakeholder engagement and support " category: Water management, a challenge for our cities … and opportunity for reinvention / Bouygues Immobilier - France
🏆 "Urban renewal projects" category: Lyon 3rd District – The Wooded Swale on Rue Duguesclin / Indigène Paysages - France
🏆Jury's Special Award:Thriving in a Changing Climate by Celebrating Water as Runoff, Sewage, and Life: Dr. M.S. Swaminathan Eco-wetland Sponge Park in Chennai / Sponge Collaborative - France-India
🏆People's Choice Award: The Great Pathway: designing a coherent inter-municipal landscape integrating sustainable rainwater management / EST Ensemble - France
Our sincere thanks to our jury members for their commitment and support!
Elisabeth SIBEUD (Métropole de Lyon), Cyrille GIREL (Grand Chambéry), Véronique DUFOUR (Ville & Aménagement Durable), Anne-Laure HERAUD (Suez), Damien SAULNIER (UrbaLyon), Vincent NALIN (Agence de l'Eau Loire-Bretagne), Fabien ABAD (Agence de l'eau Rhône Méditerranée Corse), Sylvain MOREIRA (Cerema), Frédéric DELLINGER (Eranthis), Tim FLETCHER (Université de Melbourne) and Elodie BRELOT (Graie).
The Thierry Maytraud Awards
By organizing the Thierry Maytraud Awards, Novatech international conference is keen to ensure that the conference attracts a wide range of urban policy, planning, architecture and design professionals, who are not necessarily specialists in stormwater management. The Awards pay tribute to Thierry Maytraud, urban planner and hydrologist, founder of ATM and partner of Novatech since its creation, who sadly passed away in June 2022.
Discover the finalist projects for the 2026 Thierry Maytraud Awards!
Beyond Theory: Ten‑Year Evidence of Grey–Green Integration for 30‑Year Flood Mitigation and Water Quality Restoration in Zhenjiang / Sun Yat-sen University - China
The Zhenjiang Sponge City pilot (2015–2025) demonstrates a fully integrated green-blue-grey system for climate-resilient urban water management in a dense, 29 km² urban watershed. The project’s systemic approach successfully manages 30-year return period storms (e.g., 256 mm/24 h), has effectively eliminated chronic waterlogging at all 48 historical hotspots, and enhances water quality to China's Class III standard.
> Read the full project summary
Organizing transversality through the Interdepartmental Circle “Water in the City” of Grenoble-Alpes Métropole / Grenoble-Alpes Métropole - France
The shift from 'all-pipe' grey infrastructure urban planning practices to integrated and sustainable stormwater management involves an evolution of professions and the organization of local authorities. To address the many challenges related to this shift, Grenoble-Alpes Métropole has been experimenting since September 2023 with the Interdepartmental Circle “Water in the City”. Representatives of approximately twenty different departments concerned with integrated stormwater management then participated in various workshops, in order to develop a detailed action plan with follow-up.
> Read the full project summary
Governance and innovation: Thau’s strategy for sustainable stormwater resilience / Sète Agglopôle Méditerranée - France
Faced with growing climate challenges that heighten flooding, coastal erosion, and water quality risks—crucial to Thau’s shellfish-farming economy—the territory has developed a new stormwater management strategy. It builds on two key studies: the Soil Quality Index (SQI), which assesses vulnerability to soil sealing, and the Master Plan for Integrated Stormwater Management (SDGEPI), which maps watersheds, identifies issues, and defines a coherent technical and regulatory framework.
> Read the full project summary
The “Eau en ville Initiative”: From a paradigm shift to a change in practices / Office cantonal de l'eau - Switzerland / 🏆2026 Award Winner
The “Eau en ville initiative”, led by the Cantonal Water Office of the Canton of Geneva since 2019, aims to sustainably transform urban water management based on the Sponge City concept. For the past six years, it has driven a genuine shift in practices, with nearly 150 projects supported at various scales. Awareness-raising plays a central role in the initiative, through conferences, publications, and a large media outreach (several thousands of people).
> Read the full project summary
Water Facilitator / Bruxelles Environnement - Belgium
This free service provides technical expertise to construction and land development professionals, supporting projects at every stage from initial design through to completion. It offers personalized recommendations, an independent perspective to guide decision-making, and the sharing of best practices and field experience, whether for building projects or public space development. Support is provided by phone, email, or directly on-site, depending on the specific needs of each project.
Water management, a challenge for our cities … and opportunity for reinvention / Bouygues Immobilier - France / 🏆2026 Award Winner
As cities face the growing scarcity of water ressources, and the increasing frequency of climate-related hazards, Bouygues Immobilier has developed a water management strategy in 2025. This strategy is built on two pillars: reducing water consumption, and ensuring sustainable, integrated stormwater management. This latter pillar is based on the implementation of systems aiming at zero runoff from the site during centennial rainfall events.
> Read the full project summary
Supporting co-owned properties in their greening and rainwater harvesting projects / Agence Parisienne du Climat - France
The Paris Climate Agency today incorporates the topic of greening into all of its actions related to the environmental transition of Parisian co-ownerships: raising awareness of issues related to greening and soil de-sealing, engaging the public, coordinating professional sectors, and providing technical support to co-ownerships in their projects. Since the implementation of CoprOasis, the Paris Climate Agency has reached nearly 3,000 people through around fifty events and has advised nearly 500 co-ownerships (representing nearly 30,000 homes) on issues of greening and rainwater management.
> Read the full project summary
The Great Pathway: designing a coherent inter-municipal landscape integrating sustainable rainwater management
/ EST Ensemble - France / 🏆2026 People's choice Award
The « Grand Chemin » (“Great Pathway”) is a 55 kms green loop : 36 kms of this pathway cross the 9 towns of the territorial public establishment « Est Ensemble ». The loop aims to connect numerous parks and green spaces of the Romainville plateau and the Ourcq’s plain. The unique aspect of this project is its integration into the existing urban fabric of these 9 municipalities, under the project management of Est Ensemble, by transforming public spaces into a path going through an “inhabited park” reconciling active transportation, ecological continuities, and the creation of biodiversity areas that can offer coolness and recreation opportunities.
> Read the full project summary
The Havre City Entrance / L'Anton & Associés - France
The project involved upgrading a 2.5km stretch of road with motorway characteristics (50,000 vehicles/day) into a pedestrian-friendly avenue with restructured interchanges (demolition of an interchange and an overpass, removal of small underpasses converted into stormwater storage structures), creation of at-grade intersections, and the development of a promenade and park in place of three gas stations. The 14 hectares of roads, connected to a combined sewer system, were completely separated by the creation of horizontal swales to collect stormwater runoff, small underpasses to store this water, and a rainwater treatment park to purify and reinfiltrate the treated water.
Nouveau Mons Ecodistrict / Water as the source of a new urban and landscape narrative / EMP¨REINTE - France
“Le Nouveau Mons” project is proof that landscape is a powerful tool for transforming an urban renewal area. The project completely reversed the proportion of public spaces dedicated to cars, favoring pedestrian and cycle paths and planted areas. Walking in the city has become a genuine pleasure again. Great care was taken with rainwater management: throughout the project, water shapes the design of the public space and supports biodiversity.
Lyon 3rd District – The Wooded Swale on Rue Duguesclin / Indigène Paysages - France / 🏆 2026 Award Winner
The Rue Duguesclin project (Lyon 3ᵉ) turns a deteriorated green strip into a true piece of urban ecological infrastructure. By separating drainage systems and disconnecting a large share of roof runoff, rainwater is now infiltrated on site through planted swales. This linear wooded system, nearly 150 metres long, creates a cooling effect through shading and evapotranspiration while forming a link in the ecological corridor between Parc de la Tête d’Or and Parc Blandan. Using locally sourced, wildlife-friendly plants, the project creates a resilient and low-maintenance landscape. It continues the modernist legacy of Zumbrunnen and Sillan through a contemporary interpretation of living ground and collective stewardship.
The Rives de la Haute Deûle (RHD) project in Lille-Lomme / SORELI - France
The project, strongly rooted in the historical presence of water on the site, adopted from the outset an integrated approach to stormwater management, backed by high environmental ambitions. Focused on stormwater management, the project has undergone two major phases reflecting this adaptation. The first preserves the memory of the site's industrial heritage and highlights the flow of water on the surface, paving the way for a reinvented urban landscape that reconnects with nature in the city. The second phase is built on the initial experiences gained from this “zero pipe” EcoQuartier and takes environmental considerations even further.
Thriving in a Changing Climate by Celebrating Water as Runoff, Sewage, and Life: Dr. M.S. Swaminathan Eco-wetland Sponge Park in Chennai / Sponge Collaborative - France-India / 🏆2026 Jury's Special Award
Dr. M.S. Swaminathan Eco Park in the coastal megacity of Chennai is one of India’s largest demonstrations of a Sponge Park as blue-green infrastructure (BGI) for mitigating climate risks of flooding, heat, and water scarcity. The heart of the 16.63 acres project is a restored waterbody receiving treated sewage water. With restoration, the waterbody has become a wetland habitat and flood buffer with 30,000 m3 of storage capacity.