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Welcome to our Louisiana Coastal Area Ecosystem Restoration Study Web site. The
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources,
in conjunction with federal and state agencies, are undertaking this
feasibility study, which covers 20,000 square miles of the Louisiana coast from
Texas to Mississippi (view map of project area).
We have developed this comprehensive site to provide you with up-to-date
information about the project scope and related activities.
Here are some quick facts we discovered that demonstrate to us the importance of
this study:
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Louisiana’s coastal wetlands are disappearing at the rate of 25-35 square miles
per year – that’s nearly 22,000 acres lost per year.
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As a result of the human activities and natural coastal processes, during the
past century the state of Louisiana lost between 600,000 and 900,000 acres of
valuable coastal vegetative wetlands.
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Estimates reveal that another 342,000 acres will be lost between now and the
year 2050.
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Approximately 30 percent of the land losses being experienced in coastal
Louisiana are due to natural causes. The remaining 70 percent are attributable
to man’s effect on the environment, both direct and indirect.
The Wetlands: A Source of Life and
Livelihood
The Louisiana Coastal Area study represents a committed effort to establish
highly productive, cost-effective, and long-term coastal restoration projects
that are essential to saving Louisiana’s coastal wetlands.
The Louisiana coastal plain remains the largest expanse of coastal wetlands in
the contiguous United States. The coastal wetlands, built by the deltaic
processes of the Mississippi River, contain an extraordinary diversity of
habitats that range from narrow natural levee and beach ridges to expanses of
forested swamps and freshwater, brackish, and saltwater marshes. These habitats
are one of the nation’s most productive and important natural assets.
Lane Lefort |
In addition to providing vital habitat to commercial and recreational wildlife
and fishery resources, the coastal wetlands protect an internationally
significant commercial-industrial area from the destructive forces of
storm-driven waves and tides. Coastal Louisiana produces 20 percent of the
seafood in the United States, and includes deep-draft ports that handle 16
percent of the nation’s waterborne commerce by tonnage. Coastal wetlands also
provide critical stopover habitat for neotropical songbirds on their migration
between North and Central America. In addition, coastal Louisiana is home to
over two million people, representing 46 percent of the state’s population.
When investments in facilities, supporting service activities and the urban
infrastructure are totaled, the capital investment in the Louisiana coastal
area adds up to more than $100 billion. These economic and habitat values,
which depend on the biological productivity of Louisiana’s coastal wetlands,
merit national attention.
Saving Louisiana's Wetlands
Lane Lefort |
In 1998, The state of Louisiana and the federal agencies charged with restoring
and protecting Louisiana’s valuable coastal wetlands adopted a new coastal
restoration plan entitled
Coast 2050: Toward a Sustainable Coastal Louisiana. The underlying
principles of the new plan, commonly called Coast 2050, are to restore
and/or mimic the natural processes that built and maintained coastal Louisiana.
The plan subdivides Louisiana’s coastal zone into four regions with a total of
nine hydrologic basins.
Currently, two major feasibility studies are underway to develop projects to
restore coastal Louisiana. The recently initiated Comprehensive Coastwide
Ecosystem Restoration Study will develop projects from regional strategies
across the coast and prepare a programmatic Environmental Impact Statement. An
ongoing study in Barataria Basin will develop projects for marsh creation and
barrier shoreline restoration to feasibility level, and develop a basin-wide
hydrologic and hydrodynamic model.
Other Coastal Environmental Links:
LA Coast
Save
Louisiana Wetlands
The
Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program
Coalition to
Restore Coastal Louisiana
One Gulf...One
Community
WaterMarks Magazine
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