DELTAS2010: Lab-site Sessions
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As a preliminary activity to establish a context for discussion at DELTAS2010, participants will be able to choose from six tours within a short distance of the conference. Nowhere else in the United States does such a diverse scope of activities converge along one coastline. Louisiana’s coastal wetlands support and contain: habitat for 20% of US migratory waterfowl; 79 rare, endangered and threatened species; 25% of US oil and gas production; two of four U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserves; the leading port complex in the country; 30% of the nation’s fishery production in the continental U.S.; and one of America’s most distinctive cultures.
However, Louisiana’s coastal wetlands - known as America’s WETLAND - is vanishing. Since the 1930s, more than 2,000 square miles of these vital wetlands, an area roughly the size of Delaware, have been lost. In the next 50 years, if nothing is done to prevent further loss, we could lose an additional 700 square miles of land, an area the size of the greater Washington, D.C. - Baltimore area.
Often described as a laboratory for sustainability, a set of special tours in coastal Louisiana are planned to add context to the conversations of DELTAS2010: World Delta Dialogues.
Coastal Engineering
October 17, 2010
8:00 am – 3:00 pm
Includes transportation and lunch
Minimum 30, maximum 45 participants
The State of Louisiana, in partnership with Federal agencies, has designed a comprehensive plan for coastal restoration and protection, building on demonstration projects that support scientifically sound approaches to offset the catastrophic loss of coastal wetlands. Those projects, large and small, include: freshwater diversions, outfall management, beneficial use of dredge material, shoreline protection, vegetative plantings and barrier island creation, etc. During this tour, you will visit one project area, the Caernarvon Freshwater Diversion site. Here you can learn first-hand from engineers and scientists about their approaches for combating land loss and the urgent need to implement a comprehensive, system-wide restoration and protection program to address coastal land loss.
Community Vulnerability
October 17, 2010
8:00 am – 3:00 pm
Includes transportation and lunch
Minimum 30, maximum 45 participants
Visit two highly threatened regions: one situated on the final stretch of the Mississippi River before it connects with the Gulf of Mexico; and, the other in Terrebonne Parish, Isle de Jean Charles, a community being lost to the rising tide. Plaquemines Parish is experiencing some of the highest rates of land loss in the State of Louisiana as a result of sea level rise, land subsidence and seasonal storms. Subsidence in these areas, which are home to more than 20,000 residents and a Native American tribe that has inhabited Isle de Jean Charles for the past 170 years, will result in a loss of culture unique to Louisiana.
Conservation Awareness
October 17, 2010
10:00 am – 2:00 pm
Includes transportation, equipment and lunch
Minimum 30, maximum 60 participants
At 1,300 acres, City Park, located in the heart of New Orleans, is one of the largest urban parks in the country. It was severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina with much of the ground covered in four feet of salt water for weeks. Some areas of the park serve as research centers to inform restoration efforts along Louisiana’s coast, with many small-scale wetland plantings in City Park serving as mini-habitats for biologists and scientists to learn how new species will react to coastal environments. Get your hands dirty as you participate in a vegetative planting in one of City Park’s wetlands. Many plantings have been undertaken across coastal Louisiana by the America’s WETLAND Conservation Corps and LSU AgCenter to reduce shoreline erosion, improve the habitat for fish and restore the landscape from hurricane damage. Please come dressed ready to get muddy! Please wear close-toed shoes and clothes that can get wet and muddy (we recommend you wear a swim suit under your clothes). Also bring a change of clothes to put on after the planting has finished. We will provide lunch and water.
Urban Spatial Design
October 17, 2010
8:00 am – 3:00 pm
Includes transportation and lunch
Minimum 30, maximum 45 participants
Building on the experience of three Dutch Dialogues that brought together Dutch engineers, urban designers, landscape architects, city planners and soils/hydrology experts in an “imagining process”, you will learn about the redevelopment process and planning scenarios for the city of New Orleans, with a primary focus on how water can add to the quality of life and enable economic development within the Mississippi River Delta. Concepts related to the design of cities situated in deltaic regions will be explored including land use planning, cultural and societal considerations as well as the environment, the value of historic preservation and urban conservation.
Critical Infrastructure Sustainability
October 17, 2010
8:00 am – 3:00 pm
Includes transportation and lunch
Minimum 30, maximum 45 participants
Participants will analyze the vulnerabilities and extreme events that threaten critical coastal infrastructure. LA Highway 1 is an over-burdened two-lane highway continuously threatened by coastal erosion, and often covered with water during mild tropical storms. More than a thousand trucks a day drive this endangered stretch of highway, connecting the nation with much of its offshore oil and gas supply. You will visit Port Fourchon, the hub for the central Gulf of Mexico oil and gas exploration and production, that supports approximately 18 percent of all domestic oil and gas and 15 percent of the nation’s foreign energy supply.
Triple Threat – Sea Level Rise, Subsidence, Sediment Trapping
October 17, 2010
8:00 am – 3:00 pm
Includes transportation and lunch
Minimum 30, maximum 45 participants
Learn from scientists working on the ground about the three factors, natural and manmade, that make Louisiana’s coast one of the most vulnerable on the planet. View the effects of global sea level rise, land subsidence and reduced sediment that are threatening the future of the coast in Louisiana. This tour is a literal lab for experiments conducted and lessons learned in an ever-changing ecosystem.