National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)

Enhancing the Resilience of Southeast Louisiana’s Asian American Fishing Communities

Coastal scientists from The Water Institute are working with partners at Coastal Communities Consulting and the Audubon Nature Institute to develop a collaborative, science-driven adaptation plan to support Asian American shrimpers, crabbers, oyster harvesters, fishers, and processors in protecting their communities and commercial fishing infrastructure against environmental, social, and economic stressors. The adaptation plan takes a unique transdisciplinary approach to coastal adaptation. This approach brings together residents, local stakeholders, coastal scientists, and planners to identify and co-design objectives and actions that can be taken to address issues important to community members. This includes actions that directly respond to the social, economic, and environmental challenges faced by Asian American fisherfolk, incorporating individual coping mechanisms, community adaptive strategies, and regional adaptive management approaches.

The Challenge

Asian American fisherfolk in the region have faced a series of natural and human-made disasters in recent decades, including Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, the historic flood events of 2019, and the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as increasing international competition from low-cost and farmed seafood. Compounding their vulnerability, the Asian American fisherfolk residing and working throughout southeast Louisiana includes Cambodian and Vietnamese communities, many of whom immigrated to the region with their extended families from South Vietnam in the latter quarter of the twentieth century. This specific context further compounds the community’s social and economic vulnerability to changing environmental conditions. For example, language barriers can serve as a significant challenge to engaging in local and regional action to address changing environmental conditions.

The Approach

The Water Institute of the Gulf (The Water Institute) and the School of Public Health at Louisiana State University (LSU) are co-producing the adaptation plan with Asian American fisherfolk through Coastal Communities Consulting, a 501(c)3 organization that provides technical assistance, economic development, environmental education, and disaster assistance to Southeast Asian American fisherfolk, their families, and other coast-dependent businesses and individuals of Orleans, St. Bernard, Plaquemines, Jefferson, Lafourche, and Terrebonne parishes, Louisiana.

The Water Institute is also working with the Audubon Nature Institute to leverage their specific expertise in the Gulf seafood industry and with the state fisheries management program in aligning the fishing communities’ needs with industry and market potential.

Together, this group of technical and local experts is creating a local and industry-specific adaptation plan that identifies social, economic and environmental challenges while providing tools for adaptive risk management

Timeline: Over a three-year period, this project is working directly with southeast Louisiana’s Asian American fisherfolk to collaboratively develop an adaptation plan to protect and support the shrimpers, crabbers, oyster harvesters, fishers, and processors that comprise a large percentage of the region’s commercial fishing industry.

Please Check Back in 2026 to Read the Adaptation Plan!

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KEY TEAM MEMBERS

Allison Haertling

Associate Planner

Primary Investigator VIEW TEAM MEMBER
Kathryn Keating

Social Scientist

Primary Investigator VIEW TEAM MEMBER
Katya Wowk

Senior Social Scientist

Primary Investigator VIEW TEAM MEMBER