"A Dialogue on Coastal Cities and Coastal Community Resilience": results of engagement

On February 22nd, 2024, the DCC-CR convened a town hall meeting titled “A Dialogue on Coastal Cities and Coastal Community Resilience,” in the framework of the Ocean Sciences Meeting 2024 in New Orleans, Louisiana. This town hall meeting aimed to bring together expertise from the scientific community supporting the Ocean Decade and merge it with the experiences of coastal communities and practitioners. The discussions and exchanges among the expert speakers focused on various topics, from the need to effectively translate scientific findings into actionable science, to new perspectives and strategies to involve communities into the knowledge production process through citizen science initiatives, communication strategies and new partnerships.

During the exchanges among the speakers in preparation for the town hall, key recommendations for the scientific community emerged. These recommendations aim to provide guidance, particularly for the upcoming 'Cities with the Ocean' initiative, developed within the UN Ocean Decade framework, which seeks to establish a network of coastal cities and promote dialogue with Ocean Decade Actions, fostering the development of shared solutions and strategies for coastal adaptation. To assess the validity of these recommendations and the effectiveness of proposed actions and strategies, we actively involved the audience attending the town hall, in large part representing the scientific community, through Slido to gather real-time inputs and feedback.