Water shapes our lives, so let’s work together to shape Seattle’s water future.
Water flows through our homes and streets to our creeks, lakes, and the ocean, influencing how Seattle looks, feels, and functions along the way. Seattle Public Utilities invites you to plan Seattle’s water future with us: you can help guide the next 50 years of our drainage and wastewater system investments to benefit our communities and shape our water.
Header photo by Chloe Collyer.
Read our community’s vision for Seattle’s water-resilient future.
Illustration by Natalie Dupille.
Explore Shape Our Water
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![A girl wearing a hijab explores a tide pool. Image courtesy City of Burien / pugetsound STORM.]()
About this Project
Shape Our Water is a community-centered project by Seattle Public Utilities to plan for the next 50 years of resilient drainage and wastewater systems. As we face powerful forces like climate change and rapid growth, future investments in water systems will transform our city. You can help us look beyond pipes and green infrastructure to see their broader role in people’s lives.
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![A cyclist stands next to green infrastructure in South Lake Union.]()
Drainage and Wastewater
Everyone in Seattle relies on an invisible stormwater drainage and wastewater system that helps keep our waterways clean and prevents our streets from flooding. But the potential benefits of this infrastructure go far beyond healthy waters and safe streets. The future system that you help shape can help communities that need more opportunity and make Seattle’s future more just and equitable.
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Get Involved
Over the coming decades Seattle will face huge challenges and big planning questions. How do we manage our waters in the years to come? How do we address climate change? What about housing affordability and displacement? Flooding and potential earthquakes? How can we make our water system more resilient in the face of change? What are our priorities? More importantly, what are your priorities?
Listening to community
We invited community-based organizations and people throughout Seattle to tell us about their connections to urban waters, and what they value about how water shapes their lives.
Explore the Fireside Series
You can watch videos from our 2021 Fireside Series, virtual events that invited community members and local and national leaders within the stormwater and wastewater management community to discuss how infrastructure investments could benefit Seattle, and what those benefits might look like.