In this course you will develop an understanding of how humans have shaped coastal land loss, the impacts of land loss on coastal communities, and potential solutions for those it affects

Students explore the causes of coastal land loss and possible solutions for coastal towns, like Phoenix, LA and nearby communities.

The U.S. Gulf of Mexico Coast...provides a valuable setting to study deeply connected natural and human interactions and feedbacks that have led to a complex, interconnected coastal system. The physical landscape in the region has changed significantly due to broad-scale, long-term processes such as coastal subsidence and river sediment deposition, as well as short-term episodic events such as hurricanes. Modifications from human activities, including building levees and canals and constructing buildings and roads, have left their own imprint on the natural landscape. ...

Coastal zones constitute one of the most heavily populated and developed land zones in the world. Despite the utility and economic benefits that coasts provide, there is no reliable global-scale assessment of historical shoreline change trends. Here, via the use of freely available optical satellite images captured since 1984, in conjunction with sophisticated image interrogation and analysis methods, we present a global-scale assessment of the occurrence of sandy beaches and rates of shoreline change therein...

On average, a football field of land disappears into the Gulf of Mexico every 100 minutes. Over thousands of years, the Mississippi River carried sediment to the Louisiana coastline, building up marshes, wetlands and new land. But today, because of canals and levees that constrict and confine the path of the river, the sediment cannot reach the delta to replenish the eroding wetlands. Since the 1930s, Louisiana has lost close to 2,000 square miles of wetlands, an area roughly the size of Delaware.

Coastal restoration plays a paramount role in protecting Plaquemines' citizens from storm surge and maximizes protection will allow for the expansion of Plaquemines' economic base. The purpose of the coastal restoration element of the Comprehensive Master Plan is to review and assess coastal restoration plans and activities in Plaquemines Parish. The goal of this section is to help the Parish government more effectively plan and prepare for future growth in a manner that offers maximum protection for residential, commercial, and industrial investment.

During five meetings in 2018, representative community members in St. Bernard Parish were involved in a fact-finding and participatory modeling activity. Areas of risk were identified, and potential natural and nature-based solutions were tested through modeling. The models were adjusted based on the community group's feedback. This summary outlines how this project moved forward, what was discovered through this new process, and if the community found value in the approach.

Engineers are working to help reconnect the Mississippi River to Louisiana's sediment-starved wetlands in an effort to rebuild some of the land that is disappearing at a rate of almost 11,000 acres a year - or roughly a football field an hour. The diversions will be major civil works projects without compare. The work will require careful scheduling to maintain flood protection as the Mississippi River levee comes down and a diversion gate is put in its place. And that will be the easy part.

Coastal Louisiana wetlands are one of the most critically threatened environments in the United States. These wetlands are in peril because Louisiana currently experiences greater coastal wetland loss than all other States in the contiguous United States combined. The analyses of landscape change presented here have utilized historical surveys, aerial, and satellite data to quantify landscape changes from 1932 to 2016.

It is essential that environmental education be integrated into the science classroom. Many educators use environmental education to enhance student science-based knowledge. Studies have shown that introducing environmental education not only raises science scores, but other subject scores as well (Wakefield, 2001), therefore the use of environmental education in the classroom maybe an excellent strategy to obtain student interest and increase student knowledge of all subject areas. The Louisiana Sea Grant College Program (Sea Grant) has taken this idea and put it into action.