Huge Swath of Louisiana Wetlands Will Inevitably “Drown"...

by Barbara McPherson | June 30, 2009 at 09:46 am
134 views | 20 Recommendations | 4 comments

Videos

MFF: On Location #2 - Vanishing Wetlands

see larger video

sourced by Barbara McPherson

MFF: On Location #2 - Vanishing Wetlands

A scientist, Harry Roberts, has made an alarming prediction that huge swaths of Louisiana wetlands will inevitably "drown" by the year 2100.  A combination of rising ocean levels and lessening of silt from the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers is expected to result in the inundation of large areas of Louisiana wetlands.
Engineering works on the Mississippi and Atchafalaya Rivers including dams and dikes have served to starve the wetlands from periodic replenishment of sediments.

In the study, published in Nature Geoscience, lead researcher Harry Roberts argues that Louisiana officials are going to have to triage. He says officials would have to choose which parts of the landscape could be saved and which must be abandoned, and to acknowledge that lives and businesses would be disrupted. Instead of breaking levees far south of New Orleans, where relatively few people live, Dr. Roberts said, officials should consider diversions much closer to New Orleans…. “It’s going to be an excruciating process to decide where that occurs,” Dr. Roberts said [The New York Times].


Whatever methods are used to try to mitigate the changes, it will be sure to be disruptive to human activities in the area.

recommend This comment thread is now closed
0
Paschen

Incredible. Well, I wish all would listen and change, however, I doubt that will happen any time soon, at least not in time to save Louisiana. 

1
Louis Coast

Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif";}

      If you care about coastal restoration efforts should get involved with America's WETLAND: Campaign to Save Coastal Louisiana. The foundation works to raise public awareness of the impact Louisiana’s wetland loss has on the state, nation and world and to gain support for efforts to conserve and save coastal Louisiana. They need our support!

     

     Check out their Web site:
http://www.americaswetland.com


      Join their Facebook group:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2218884569#/group.php?gid=10751373114


     Watch fascinating videos on their YouTube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/marmillionco

0
forthebetta

i don't believe anyone can predict the weather farther than 3 days into the future.


91 years!!!!!

0
Mardi VanEgdom

If this is inevitable, all I can say is thank God I'll be dead.

This story was created over 3 months ago, the comment thread is now closed.

What is NowPublic?

NowPublic lets people work together to cover news events around the world.

Find out more

Crowd Power

Amy Judd
First Flagged at 12:49 PM, Jun 30, 2009 by Amy Judd
These members have powered this story:

Most Recommended Stories in Environment

Recommendations (20)

Most recently recommended by:
 

closeSign in to NowPublic

is reporting from