See more from this Division: Overarching Sessions
See more from this Session: Pardee Keynote Symposia: Reducing Vulnerability of Gulf Coast Communities to Hurricane Impacts and Sea-Level Rise: Are Large Scale Restoration and Engineering the Answer?
Abstract:
To address the loss of wetlands, more than 30 international wetland scientists and engineers met in Louisiana in April, 2006 to seek consensus on a meaningful, long-lasting solution. They concluded fundamental changes are needed immediately, including reconfiguring the lower Mississippi river.
To retard wetland loss and begin rebuilding the delta plain three steps area urgently needed. (1) Abandon the present Mississippi birdsfoot' outlet with new outlets between Myrtle Grove and Venice. This will retain much of the outflow on the shelf to be reworked shoreward. (2) Eliminate levee margins wherever possible and provide water/sediment diversions where levees must remain so to provide freshwater and sediment nourishment to existing marshes. (3) Once the above are in place, remove all possible upstream dams which have impounded decades of sediment.
See more from this Division: Overarching Sessions
See more from this Session: Pardee Keynote Symposia: Reducing Vulnerability of Gulf Coast Communities to Hurricane Impacts and Sea-Level Rise: Are Large Scale Restoration and Engineering the Answer?