Sea'ties Declaration: the mayors and governors’ forum cities and their territories tackling sea level rise

Mayors and governors of the world’s coastal cities call relevant stakeholders, building on the «Cities Race to Resilience» campaign, to scale-up mitigation and adaptation to limit the impacts of sea level rise on cities, communities and their territories. Sea level rise, coupled with rapid urbanization, entails significant environmental, economic, social and cultural impacts to which coastal cities are particularly exposed. Coastal flooding, erosion, inland salinization and other sea level rise impacts have been increasingly affecting cities and territories.

Sea level rise cannot be tackled through a one-size-fits-all response, and requires considering a variety of factors, specific to each city. Four priority areas need to be leveraged to successfully adapt coastal cities to sea level rise:

• Mobilizing science and observation systems to guide adaptation to sea level rise
• Integrating societal issues within adaptation plans to sea level rise
• Fostering adaptive and hybrid solutions in the face of sea level rise
• Boosting public funding and private investments for adaptation to sea level rise