Louisiana Coastal Adaptation Toolkit

The Louisiana Coastal Adaptation Toolkit provides adaptation resources that communities can use to address climate impacts on coastal Louisiana. This toolkit highlights adaptation strategies, and offers guidance on how to use certain practices or policy strategies in concert with the natural environment of Louisiana’s coast to foster adaptation. In addition, the toolkit contains links to resources on each of the coastal impacts covered in this document, and funding options to implement these adaptation strategies.

The toolkit is arranged around the coastal impacts of:

  • Flooding
  • Hurricanes
  • Coastal Erosion
  • Sea-Level Rise
  • Subsidence
  • Extreme Temperatures
  • Thunderstorms, Lightning, Hail
  • Drought

A section of the toolkit is dedicated to each of these coastal impacts, where adaptive options are provided - arranged in broad categories of: regulatory and planning, design and engineering, ecosystem, and social. Guidance on potential funding sources to carry out both the assessment of environmental challenges and the implementation of adaptations is included.

Utilizing Coastal Erosion as an example, each of the following adaptation strategies of all categories are fully described:

The Regulatory and Planning Adaptations are: Comprehensive Plan; Zoning; Building Codes/Resilient Design; Retrofitting; Redevelopment Restrictions; Conservation Easements; Acquisitions, Demolition, and Resettlement; Setbacks; and Open Space Preservation and Conservations.

The Design and Engineering Adaptations discussed are to: Protect Transportation Networks; Protect Electrical Networks; Adjust Placement of Critical Infrastructure; Protect Water and Sewer Infrastructure; and Shore Protection Structure.

Ecosystem-Based Adaptations described for managing coastal erosion are: Ecological Buffer Zones; Ecosystem Protection and Maintenance; and Ecosystem Restoration, Creation, and Enhancement.

The Social Adaptations considered are: Public Participatory Practices; Public Education and Outreach; Mobility; and the Perpetuation of Adaptations.

 

This project has been funded in part by the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, and is part of The Water Institute of the Gulf ’s Human Dimensions effort defined by its Science and Engineering Plan.

 

 

 

Publication Date: 2015

Authors or Affiliated Users:

  • Garrett C. Wolf
  • Craig E. Colten

Related Organizations:

Sectors:

Resource Category:

Resource Types:

  • Planning guides
  • Policy analysis/recommendations

States Affected:

Impacts:

Go To Resource