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Scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey National Wetlands Research Center assessed changes in land and water coverage in coastal Louisiana within two months of Hurricane Gustav and Hurricane Ike by using Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) satellite imagery.
The purpose of this study was twofold:
(1) to provide preliminary information on land-water area changes in coastal Louisiana shortly after Hurricanes Ike and Gustav made landfall and
(2) to contrast these changes with prior, widespread land area changes caused by Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita three years earlier.
The 2009 report concludes that it is likely that the cumulative loss from these hurricane seasons will remain significant. However, estimation of permanent losses cannot be made until several growing seasons have passed and the transitory impacts of the hurricanes are accounted for.
By 2050, without any further restoration action, scientists believe that one third of coastal Louisiana will have vanished into the Gulf of Mexico. Louisiana currently experiences about 90 percent of the total coastal wetlands loss in the continental United States. The impacts on human populations, the oil and gas infrastructure, fisheries and the seafood industry, and wildlife will be considerable if coastal wetlands continue to disappear.
According to James B. Johnston, spatial analysis branch chief at the USGS National Wetlands Research Center, in a press release dated May 21, 2003, "If we take wetland loss information from the USGS and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, we know that Louisiana lost 1,900 square miles from 1932 to 2000, roughly an area the size of the state of Delaware. Based on the best scientific estimates appearing in the LCA Land Loss Report, the state will lose an additional 700 square miles, about equal to the size of the greater Washington, D.C.-Baltimore, Md. area." For additional USGS information, see the NWRC Spatial Data and Metadata Server.
Many Coastal Wetlands Likely to Disappear This Century
Matthew Kirwan, USGS
By Glenn Guntenspergen, Matthew Kirwan, and Jessica Robertson
Sound Waves, Jan. / Feb 2011
Many coastal wetlands worldwide - including several on the U.S. Atlantic coast - may be more sensitive than previously thought to climate change and sea-level rise projected for the 21st century.
U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) scientists drew this conclusion from an international research-modeling effort published December 1, 2010, in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, a publication of the American Geophysical Union. Scientists identified conditions under which coastal wetlands could survive rising sea level.
Using a rapid sea-level-rise scenario, most coastal wetlands worldwide will disappear near the end of the 21st century. In contrast, under the slow sea-level-rise scenario, wetlands with low sediment availability and low tidal ranges are vulnerable and may drown, while wetlands with higher sediment availability are more likely to survive.
