Houmatoday
Nicholls State University will receive nearly $500,000 to conduct research aimed at helping Louisiana preserve its eroding coast.
The $495,368 will come from fines and penalties levied against BP and other companies involved in the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
It's among eight Louisiana research grants totaling $2.3 million announced this week by the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority and the Water Institute of the Gulf. The latter organization vets grant proposals on the state's behalf and selects recipients to be funded by the oil money, which under Louisiana law must be spent on coastal restoration.
Nicholls' research will focus on ridges, strips of elevated land the Mississippi River, area bayous and other waterways created when sediment overflowed their banks. In many cases, that process ended after flood-protection levees were built along the river and some of its tributaries in the late 1920s.
As a result, many ridges have eroded and no longer buffer communities and wetlands from flooding.
“Our understanding of how ridges function and the ecological and sociological communities they support is limited,” said Jonathan Willis, an assistant professor of biological sciences at Nicholls. “By resolving targeted data gaps and providing conceptual models of ridge function, we can facilitate planning for coastal ridge restoration projects.”
Nicholls' research will take place throughout the Barataria-Terrebonne Estuary, a portion of south Louisiana between the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers, including all of Terrebonne and Lafourche. Since 1935, the area has lost 935 square miles of land, or 598,730 acres, to erosion and rising seas.
Faculty and students in biology, geomatics, English, history and geography will contribute to the research. They will conduct field surveys, use drones to take videos and photos, perform lab analysis, do historical reviews and interview residents in the estuary.
Nicholls officials say the work, which will start this fall and continue through 2023, fits into the Thibodaux university's plans to position itself as a leading center for coastal education and research.
The university will begin preliminary work next year on a $14.5 million Coastal Center that will serve as a hub for research on Louisiana's eroding wetlands and how to preserve and restore them.
Announced in 2019 by Gov. John Bel Edwards, Nicholls expects to receive bids by year's end on groundwork for the 33,000-square-foot building. That work, financed by $2.5 million from the state coastal agency, is set to begin early next year.
“This funding is recognition of the strong reputation of Nicholls scientists and students and the important coastal work they’ve been conducting over the years,” said John Doucet, dean of Nicholls' College of Science and Technology and director of coastal initiatives. “This grant award is a win for Nicholls and the Coastal Center but it is also a win for the communities of the Terrebonne-Lafourche-Barataria region.” Read the full story here.