The Greater New Orleans area suffers from flooding caused by extreme rainfall events on a yearly basis. Since most stormwater is flushed into the drainage system via mostly impervious surface, water does not infiltrate into the ground, which causes subsidence due to soil drying out, which causes damages to roads, buildings and underground utilities. These problems are now being addressed in a comprehensive plan called the Greater New Orleans Urban Water Plan (UWP). The project area consists of the east banks of Orleans and Jefferson Parish and all of St. Bernard Parish. The goals of the UWP are to increase safety, provide economic opportunity, and improve quality of life. The next step is implementation. In literature several constraints are found towards implementation which are usually more socio-institutional rather than technical, such as unclear, fragmented roles and responsibilities of local government and limits of regulatory framework. A study was conducted to identify the next steps for implementation. The framework in which this was done consists of a stakeholder analysis, followed by interviews which gave input for a Strengths-Weaknesses-Opportunities-Threats-analysis (SWOT-analysis), identified constraints towards implementation and gave input for a Multi Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA). The SWOT analysis showed more strengths and opportunities than weaknesses and threats, which shows that overall the interviewed stakeholders are positive about the plan. The biggest strengths of the UWP are considered the approach and principals, the biggest weaknesses is funding and lack of technical data in the plan, the biggest opportunities are in funding and cost savings and the biggest threats are costs, creating enormous expectations for organizations, the potential of mosquito breeding sites and it being too much work for an organization. The weaknesses and threats need to be considered in order to start implementation. The constraints that were identified were put in the framework of the chain model. The chain model is a tool which was developed by a workgroup of the Dutch Ministry of Public Works to develop a new way of policy making, since this policy subjects were becoming more and more complex. The model consists of five elements: policy, legislation, implementation, maintenance and control, and organization. Basically, what the policymakers decide in the first component influences the work of all the stakeholders in the next components. The idea is that different stakeholders from each of these components should be involved from the very beginning to help state what the policy issues are and what causes them. This could require changes to the last component, organization. After identification of the constraints by the stakeholders during the interviews, it became clear that a component was missing from the chain model, namely politics. Since the UWP was not developed by local government, the first step is for local elected officials to buy-in. In each of the components of the chain model constraints were identified. In politics the most mentioned constraint is getting buy-in from general public, which would require a lot of outreach according to the interviewees. A small survey was conducted which revealed that general public had knowledge on the stormwater management and subsidence, but hardly anyone knew about the UWP. Yet, when explaining the principles and strategies of the UWP to them, the overall reaction was quite positive, showing that this is a constraint that might not be that difficult to overcome. In the field of policy and legislation the biggest constraint is the lack of policy and legislation. All three parishes have a comprehensive plan that shows the vision and policy for the future. In Orleans and St. Bernard Parish these plans include a vision that is similar to the UWP. As for legislation, there is hardly anything that incentivizes projects and plans of the UWP. But there are some developments on the way; Orleans Parish is in the process of rewriting their Comprehensive Zoning Ordinance, which now includes an article on stormwater retention in new developments and re-developments and Jefferson Parish is conducting a study towards the reduction of the amount of needed parking lots for new developments, but more can be done and should be done in for example ordinances on roads and building codes. Constraints in implementation can mostly be accounted to not knowing enough about the UWP. The constraints focused on project areas being in areas which are too densely developed, however the UWP does not contain any projects which require buildings and developments to be torn down, or projects being on private land, which is only the case when this is in agreement with the owners of the private land. The biggest constraint with maintenance and control was the possible lack of maintenance, and more importantly, the responsibility of maintenance, which in some cases still needs to be assigned to an entity, organization or person. The component organization had multiple constraints that were frequently mentioned: responsibility of different aspects of the UWP; fragmentation on a local and regional level; coordination; and cooperation and agreement between entities and parishes. These are very important constraints to overcome, since in order to reach the full potential of the Plan it should a regional effort. Funding and paradigm shift where the most frequent mentioned constraints, which can be placed in multiple parts of the chain model, funding in implementation and maintenance and control, and paradigm shift in politics and organization. The ELECTRE III method was used to perform an MCDA for several elements of the UWP on several criteria and the most frequent mentioned constraints. It revealed that there is a difference in what is best to implement, based on the criteria, and what is easiest to implement, based on the constraints. It also showed that it might be rewarding to take a different approach in what to implement in each parish, since the outranking results were different for each parish. In an ideal situation for implementation of the UWP a regional entity would be created which would have responsibility of urban drainage and subsidence in the whole project area. Since this will be difficult to realize, due to entities needing to give up responsibilities and the fact that an extra entity will be added to an already complex organizational structure it might be better to create a board in which each of the entities and parishes participate. Also, currently the most general approach for implementation is a top-down approach, however, since the neighborhoods in the region, especially in Orleans Parish are quite strong, a bottom-up approach should also be considered. However, it should be taken into account that this will only be a good approach for small-scale retrofits, and not for the large scale strategies in the UWP, such as circulation of the canals. Implementation of the UWP will be a big challenge and making additions to the plan, like an action plan for the stakeholders or adding more scientific background, will not be enough, but there are a lot of steps that can be taken. Assigning responsibilities, maybe even changing the jurisdictions of some entities, making policies and legislation that incentivize implementation of the Plan and enforcing this legislation, finding a way to get every stakeholder around the table, which perhaps can be done in the form a board. Communication will be a very important aspect, in the form of outreach to the general public, but also to remove some of the uncertainties that stakeholders have. And finally commitment is needed from local government, commitment by adjusting policies and regulations, but for now starting to implement the proposed demonstration projects.