Our Views: Science-based solutions vital to Gulf Coast, wetlands

Along with everything else these days, the phrase “follow the science” has been politicized and taken as partisan property in national debates. But there is one place where a bipartisan leadership consensus on science-based solutions can be found, and that is on the Gulf Coast in the form of the now 10-year-old Water Institute of the Gulf.

The institute was formed in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita to apply data and in-depth research on the coastline, marshland preservation and river flows — all informed by decades of deep research from Louisiana’s universities. But the institute modeled after the famed Deltares in the Netherlands, where the challenges of the North Sea have been fought for not decades, but centuries, was established to apply scientific insights to decisions about how to deal with the coast’s challenges. More here.