Publications

The Water Institute produces a range of scientific publications. In this way, we contribute to the state of the science, communicating cutting edge ideas to a broad technical audience.

Quantifying the Potential Contribution of Submerged Aquatic Vegetation to Coastal Carbon Capture in a Delta System from Field and Landsat 8/9-Operational Land Imager (OLI) Data with Deep Convolutional Neural Network

Submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) are highly efficient at carbon sequestration and, despite their relatively small distribution globally, are recogni...

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Tidal Inlets and Lagoons Along Siliciclastic Barrier Coasts

Tidal Inlets are found along barrier coastlines throughout the world. They provide a pathway for navigation between the coastal ocean and sheltered wa...

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Assessing the effectiveness of nourishment in decadal barrier island morphological resilience

Nourishment has shown to be an effective method for short-term storm protection along barrier islands and sandy beaches by reducing flooding, wave att...

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Particle tracking to examine sediment dynamics in a Mississippi River delta diversion

In this article, "Observational and numerical particle tracking to examine sediment dynamics in a Mississippi River delta diversion," the authors use ...

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Compartment-based Hydrodynamic and Water Quality Modeling of a Northern Everglades Wetland, Florida

The last remaining large remnant of softwater wetlands in the US Florida Everglades lies within the Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife R...

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Mississippi River channel response to the Bonnet Carré Spillway opening in the 2011 flood

The large Mississippi River flood in 2011 was notable in south Louisiana for requiring operation of several flood control structures to reduce stress ...

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Numerical modeling of hydrodynamics and sediment transport in lower Mississippi at a proposed delta building diversion

The Mississippi river delta of south Louisiana is a highly engineered system with extensive levees, flood control and diversion structures that is als...

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Evaluation of Sediment Diversion Design Attributes and Their Impact on the Capture Efficiency

Many riverine systems have been disconnected from their receiving basins by flood-protection levees and other engineered systems. Reconnecting these a...

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Historical Recontruction of Phytoplankton Composition in Estuaries of Fiordland, New Zealand

Phytoplankton pigments in sediment cores from four New Zealand fjords were quantified to investigate community composition and primary production in t...

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2017 Coastal Master Plan

A suite of individual modeling tools was developed for use in the 2012 Coastal Master Plan. The models were used to estimate the individual and cumula...

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Global Risks and Research Priorities for Coastal Subsidence

Coastal lowlands are particularly vulnerable to the climate change effects forecasted for the 21st century including threats of inundation by accelera...

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Proposed best modeling practices for assessing the effects of ecosystem restoration on fish

Large-scale aquatic ecosystem restoration is increasing and is often controversial because of the economic costs involved, with the focus of the contr...

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Relationships between salinity and short-term soil carbon accumulation rates from marsh types across

This paper shows that although researchers found relatively little difference in the rates of this short-term accumulation across marsh types, as sali...

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Riverside morphological response to pulsed sediment diversions

This paper examines how researchers used numerical modeling of the lower Mississippi River informed by detailed field observations to produce informat...

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Linking the bottom to the top in aquatic ecosystems

Linkages between benthic and pelagic habitats occur in both freshwater and marine systems across multiple spatial and temporal scales, and are influen...

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High rates of organic carbon burial in fjord sediments globally

The deposition and long-term burial of organic carbon in marine sediments has played a key role in controlling atmospheric oxygen and carbon dioxide c...

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Contrasting watershed-scale trends in runoff and sediment yield complicate rangeland water resources planning

Rangelands cover a large portion of the earth’s land surface and are undergoing dramatic landscape changes. At the same time, these ecosystems face in...

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Distribution of branched GDGTs in surface sediments from the Colville River, Alaska

Significant climate fluctuations in the Arctic over the recent past, and additional predicted future temperature changes, highlight the need for high-...

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Modern deposition rates and patterns of organic carbon burial in Fiordland, New Zealand

This publication looks at patterns of organic carbon burial in Fiordland, New Zealand. Fjords are disproportionately important for global organic carb...

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Spatial and Temporal Patterns in Thalassia testudinum Leaf Tissue Nutrients at Chandeleur Islands

Seagrasses are submerged marine plants that are anchored to the substrate and are therefore limited to assimilating nutrients from the surrounding wat...

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Pathways and Processes Associated with the Transport of Groundwater in Deltaic Systems

Allison, M.A., Kolker, A.S., Cable, J.E., Johannesson, K.H. and Inniss, L.V. (2013) “Pathways and processes associated with the transport of groundwat...

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Suspension of Bed Material over Sand Bars in the Lower Mississippi River & its Implications

Allison, M.A., and Ramirez, M.T. (2013) “Suspension of bed material over sand bars in the Lower Mississippi River and its implications for Mississippi...

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An Examination of Froude-Supercritical Flows and Cyclic Steps On A Subaqueous Lacustrine Delta, Lake

Density-driven submarine flows, including turbidity currents, play an important role in the transfer of sediment into deep water. These bottom-hugging...

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Sources of organic matter in sediments of the Colville River delta, Alaska: A multi-proxy approach

Thawing of permafrost and subsequent release of organic carbon in the warming Arctic has great potential to influence carbon cycling between the land ...

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Coastal Ecosystems: A Critical Element of Risk Reduction

Spalding, M.D., McIvor, A.L., Beck, M.W., Koch, E.W., Moller, I., Reed, D.J., Rubinoff, P., Spencer, T., Tolhurst, T.J., Wamsley, T.V., van Wesenbeeck...

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Diversion of Mississippi River Water Downstream of New Orleans, La to Maximize Sediment Capture

Allison, M.A., Ramirez, M.T., Meselhe, E.A. (2014) "Diversion of Mississippi River Water Downstream of New Orleans, Louisiana, USA to Maximize Sedimen...

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Bed Forms Resistance Dependency on Numerical Model Grid Size Spatial Resolution

El Kheiashy, K., McCorquodale, J., Georgiou, I., Meselhe, E. (2014).  "Bed Forms Resistance Dependency on Numerical Model Grid Size Spatial Resolution...

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Forecasting Landscape Effects of Mississippi River Diversions on Elevation and Accretion

Wang, H., Steyer, G.D., Couvillion, B.R., Rybczyk, J.M., Beck, H.J., Sleavin, W.J., Meselhe, E.A., Allison, M.A., Boustany, R.G., Fischenich, C.J., Ri...

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Influence of the Mississippi River on Pseudo-Nitzschia spp. Abundance and Toxicity in Louisiana

Melissa Baustian co-authored "Influence of the Mississippi River on Pseudo-nitzchia spp. Abundance and Toxicity in Louisiana Coastal Waters". The pres...

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Ecohydrology Component of Louisiana's 2012 Coastal Master Plan: Mass-Balance Compartment Model

Meselhe, E., McCorquodale, J.A., Shelden, J., Dortch, M., Brown, T.S., Elkan, P., Rodrigue, M.D., Schindler, J.K., and Wang, Z. (2013) "Ecohydrology C...

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Oceanography, Volume 30, Number 3

"Oceanography: Special Issue on Sedimentary Processes Building a Tropical Delta Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow: The Mekong System" presents work from ...

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Landscape-Level Estimation of Nitrogen Removal in Coastal Louisiana Wetlands

Rivera-Monroy, V.H., Branoff, B., Meselhe, E., McCorquodale, A., Dortch, M., Steyer, G.D., Visser, J., and Wang, H. (2013) "Landscape-Level Estimation...

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Louisiana's 2012 Coastal Master Plan: Overview of a Science-Based & Publicly Informed Process

Peyronnin, N., Green, M., Richards, C.P., Owens, A., Reed, D., Chamberlain, J., Groves, D.G., Rhinehart, W.K., and Belhadjali, K. (2013) "Louisiana's ...

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Louisiana's 2012 Coastal Master Plan: Overview of a Science-Based & Publicly Informed Process

Peyronnin, N., Green, M., Richards, C.P., Owens, A., Reed, D., Chamberlain, J., Groves, D.G., Rhinehard, W.K., and Belhadjali, K. (2013) "Louisiana's ...

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Hydrologic Modeling in a Marsh–Mangrove Ecotone: Predicting Wetland Surface Water and Salinity Response to Restoration in the Ten Thousand Islands Region of Florida, USA

At the fringe of Everglades National Park in southwest Florida, United States, the Ten Thousand Islands National Wildlife Refuge (TTINWR) habitat has ...

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Community Resettlement Prospects in Southeast Louisiana

Christopher Dalbom, Program Manager of the Tulane Institute on Water Resources Law & Policy; Scott A. Hemmerling, Associate Director of Human Dime...

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An Overview of Cyberinfrastructure to Support the Coastal Modeling Community in the Gulf of Mexico

Twilley, R.R., S. Brandt, D. Breaux, J. Cartwright, J. Chen, G. Easson, P. Fitzpatrick, K. Fridley, S. Graves, S. Harper, C. Kaiser, A. Maestre, M. Ma...

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Parametric Uncertainty Analysis of Predictive Models in Louisiana's 2012 Coastal Master Plan

Habib, E. and Reed, D. (2013) "Parametric Uncertainty Analysis of Predictive Models in Louisiana's 2012 Coastal Master Plan," Journal of Coastal Resea...

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Morphodynamic evolution of a lower Mississippi River channel bar after sand mining

This paper reports the results of an investigation on the relationship between sediment supply, borrow-pit flow hydrodynamics, and borrow-pit infillin...

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2017 Coastal Master Plan: Strategy for Selecting Fish Modeling Approaches

Coastal restoration involves the alteration of environmental conditions that result in direct and indirect responses of individual fish and shellfish....

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Global Risks and Research Priorities for Coastal Subsidence

Subsidence plays a significant role in Louisiana’s continued coastal land loss and marsh deterioration, with some areas measuring in at a rate of 10 m...

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Morphodynamics of the Erosional Phase of Crevasse-Splay Evolution and Implications for Diversions

Researchers used the West Bay diversion in lower Plaquemines Parish as analogue for state-proposed sediment diversions in Lower Barataria and Lower Br...

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Application of Species Distribution Models to Identify Estuarine Hot Spots for Juvenile Nekton

Modeling the distribution and habitat capacities of key estuarine species can be used to identify hot spots, areas where species density is significan...

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Louisiana Coastal Area Program - Mississippi River Hydrodynamic and Delta Management Study

The Louisiana Coastal Area, Louisiana Ecosystem Restoration Study was recommended to Congress by a Chief of Engineers report dated January 31, 2005 th...

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Influence of antecedent geology on the Holocene formation and evolution of Horn Island, Mississippi, USA

Horn Island, one of the two most stable barriers along the Mississippi-Alabama chain (Cat, East and West Ship, Horn, West Petit Bois, Petit Bois, and ...

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Development and Application of an Empirical Dune Growth Model for Evaluating Barrier Island Recovery from Storms

Coastal zone managers require models that predict barrier island change on decadal time scales to estimate coastal vulnerability, and plan habitat res...

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Sensitivity of Storm Response to Antecedent Topography in the XBeach Model

Antecedent topography is an important aspect of coastal morphology when studying and forecasting coastal change hazards. The uncertainty in morphologi...

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The Roles of Storminess and Sea Level Rise in Decadal Barrier Island Evolution

Barrier islands protect mainland coastal communities during storms. In the future, the effects of storms and sea level rise (SLR) threaten barrier isl...

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Sand settling through bedform-generated turbulence in rivers

Fluvial bedforms generate a turbulent wake that can impact suspended‐sediment settling in the passing flow. This impact has implications for local sus...

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Direct and indirect controls on organic matter decomposition in four coastal wetland communities along a landscape salinity gradient

Coastal wetlands store more carbon than most ecosystems globally. As sea level rises, changes in flooding and salinity will potentially impact ecologi...

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Dinoflagellate Cysts Track Eutrophication in the Northern Gulf of Mexico

We examined organic-walled dinoflagellate cysts from one Pb-dated seddiment core and 39 surface sediment samples from te norther Gulf of Mexico to det...

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Discharge controls on the sediment and dissolved nutrient transport flux of the lowermost Mississippi River: Implications for export to the ocean and for delta restoration

Researchers at The Water Institute of the Gulf, Tulane University, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Engineering Research and Development Center us...

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Use of Marsh Edge and Submerged Aquatic Vegetation as Habitat by Fish and Crustaceans in Degrading Southern Louisiana Coastal Marshes

Marshes in coastal Louisiana are undergoing rapid rates of loss making it important to understand how fish and crustaceans use these changing landscap...

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Principles for integrated island management in the tropical Pacific

We propose a new approach for island-wide planning and implementation of ecosystem management in the Pacific, recognizing a lack of replicability, sus...

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Social Factors Key to Landscape-Scale Coastal Restoration: Lessons Learned from Three U.S. Case Studies

In the United States, extensive investments have been made to restore the ecological function and services of coastal marine habitats. Despite a growi...

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Rethinking the River

A complex set of pressing management concerns is driving a shift in the ways that science and management are coupled in the Mississippi River Delta re...

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Elevating local knowledge through participatory modeling: active community engagement in restoration planning in coastal Louisiana

Numerical modeling efforts in support of restoration and protection activities in coastal Louisiana have traditionally been conducted externally to an...

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Knowledge-Based Predictive Tools to Assess Effectiveness of Natural and Nature-Based Solutions for Coastal Restoration and Protection Planning

Predictive tools are widely used to study coastal and deltaic systems in support of basic research, planning efforts, engineering design, and the impl...

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Engaging coastal community members about natural and nature-based solutions to assess their ecosystem function

Hazards in coastal ecosystems, such as flooding and land loss, demand natural and nature-based solutions from local communities due to the protective ...

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Paleo-environmental evidence of ecosystem change in Lake St. Clair region of Laurentian Great Lakes basin: contrasting responses to land-use change and invasive mussels

The Laurentian Great Lakes have been subject to substantial modification from diverse anthropogenic stressors, including nutrient enrichment, climate ...

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Voluntary Restoration: Mitigation's Silent Partner in the Quest to Reverse Coastal Wetland Loss in the USA

Coastal ecosystems are under pressure from a vast array of anthropogenic stressors, including development and climate change, resulting in significant...

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Linking management planning for coastal wetlands to potential future wave attenuation under a range of relative sea-level rise scenarios

Understanding changes in wave attenuation by emergent vegetation as wetlands degrade or accrete over time is crucial for incorporation of wetlands int...

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Keeping Nutrients Where You Need Them

A green lawn, gorgeous landscaping, or that backyard garden usually means the application of fertilizer in one form or another. However, that fertiliz...

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Development of an Integrated Biophysical Model to represent morphological and ecological processes in a changing deltaic and coastal ecosystem

Deltaic and coastal ecosystems are changing in response to natural and anthropogenic forces that require ecosystem-level restoration efforts to avoid ...

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Tidal flat-wetland systems as flood defenses: Understanding biogeomorphic controls

Coastal managers worldwide increasingly recognize the importance of conservation and restoration of natural coastal ecosystems. This ensures coastal r...

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Building a More Resilient Housing System

In February 2017, the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University, Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), and CSH partnered to host ...

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Towards a framework to support coastal change governance in small islands

Small islands can guide visualization of the diverse information requirements of future context-relevant coastal governance. On small marine islands (...

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Response of Shrimp Populations to Land-Derived Nitrogen in Waquoit Bay, Massachusetts

Land-derived nitrogen impacts are a major agent of change affecting estuarine populations. Some changes include macroalgae and phytoplankton blooms, w...

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Innovative Assessment Tools for a Short, Fast-Paced, Summer Field Course

An experiential science program, such as a summer course at a field station, requires unique assessment tools. Traditional assessment via a pencil-and...

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Seasonal Composition of Benthic Macroinfauna Exposed to Hypoxia in the Northern Gulf of Mexico

Bottom-water hypoxia in the northern Gulf of Mexico has increased in severity (duration, frequency, and intensity) since the 1970s and has impacted th...

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Effects of summer 2003 hypoxia on macrobenthos and Atlantic croaker foraging selectivity in the northern Gulf of Mexico

Bottom-water hypoxia (≤ 2 mg O2 L− 1) occurs on an annual basis on the northern Gulf of Mexico continental shelf from mid-May through mid-September ov...

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A Bayesian hierarchical modeling approach for analyzing observational data from marine ecological studies

This study introduces the Bayesian hierarchical modeling approach for analyzing observational data from marine ecological studies using a data set int...

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Seasonal microphytobenthos on the hypoxic ­northern Gulf of Mexico continental shelf

The presence of photosynthetic organisms on the seafloor may indicate whether oxygen evolution contributes to the bottom water oxygen pool in the hypo...

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Coupling Socioeconomic and Lake Systems for Sustainability: A Conceptual Analysis Using Lake St. Clair Region as a Case Study

Applying sustainability at an operational level requires understanding the linkages between socioeconomic and natural systems. We identified linkages ...

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A one hundred year review of the socioeconomic and ecological systems of Lake St. Clair, North America

There is a growing concern about continued impairment of aquatic ecosystems resulting from increasing population size, land use, climate change, and t...

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Shifting career pathways of Ph.D. ecologists: Is it time to redefine the "alternative" career?"

Graduate programs in ecology tend to emphasize academic careers for Ph.D. candidates, while viewing non academic careers (e.g., those in government, n...

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EnvironMentors: Mentoring At-Risk High School Students through University Partnerships

Informal place-based environmental education is a proven approach for increasing environmental awareness for students in urban cities. This article de...

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Melitasphaeridium choanophorum – a living fossil dinoflagellate cyst in the Gulf of Mexico

This study shows the first conclusive evidence that Melitasphaeridium choanophorum, a dinoflagellate cyst species until recently considered extinct, i...

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Historical Associations of Molecular Measurements of Escherichia coli and Enterococci to Anthropogenic Activities and Climate Variables in Freshwater Sediment Cores

This study investigated the long-term associations of anthropogenic (sedimentary P, C, and N concentrations, and human population in the watershed), a...

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Modeling current and future freshwater inflow needs of a subtropical estuary to manage and maintain forested wetland ecological conditions

Freshwater bodies and estuaries worldwide are undergoing drastic change due to alteration of freshwater flow that impacts their ecology. Freshwater in...

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Direct and indirect controls on organic matter decomposition in four coastal wetland communities along a landscape salinity gradient

As sea level rises, initial direct effects of salinity will stimulate decay of labile carbon, but over time as plant communities shift from fresh to p...

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Investing in Natural and Nature-Based Infrastructure: Building Better Along Our Coasts

Much of the United States’ critical infrastructure is either aging or requires significant repair, leaving U.S. communities and the economy vulnerable...

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A multi-proxy investigation of late-Holocene temperature change and climate-driven fluctuations in sediment sourcing: Simpson Lagoon, Alaska

The significant and ongoing environmental changes in Arctic regions demonstrate the need for quantitative, high-resolution records of pre-industrial c...

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Transfer Entropy as a Tool for Hydrodynamic Model Validation

The validation of numerical models is an important component of modeling to ensure reliability of model outputs under prescribed conditions. In river ...

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Eroding Communities and Diverting Populations: Historical Population Dynamics in Coastal Louisiana

The traditional notion of inherent resilience as a continual functioning of community during “non-crisis” periods does not apply perfectly to coastal ...

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Social Justice and Mobility in Coastal Louisiana, USA

Louisiana faces extensive coastal land loss which threatens the livelihoods of marginalized populations. These groups have endured extreme disruptive ...

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Incorporating Local Knowledge into Ecological Restoration Assessments – Case Studies in Louisiana

Ecological restoration and other activities that interact with environmental systems have typically relied on scientic analysis to predict the impacts...

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Monitoring plans for Louisiana’s system-wide assessment and monitoring program (SWAMP). Version IV

The System-Wide Assessment and Monitoring Program (SWAMP) has been envisioned as a long-term monitoring program to ensure a comprehensive network of c...

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Louisiana Adaptive Management Status and Improvement Report: Vision and Recommendations

This report presents a consensus-based common vision for adaptive management of coastal restoration implementation in Louisiana. As Louisiana Coastal ...

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Gulf-wide data synthesis for restoration planning: Utility and limitations

Examines a process of synthesizing available data in order to maximize environmental, societal, and financial benefits of work planned to be done as a...

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Double exposure and dynamic vulnerability: Assessing economic well-being, ecological change and the development of the oil and gas industry in coastal Louisiana

Examines the relationship between economic well-being, oil and gas infrastructure development, and healthy fish and shellfish habitat in Louisiana’s c...

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Strategies to implement adaptive management practices for restoration in coastal Louisiana

Due to the Deepwater Horizon settlement, the amount of coastal restoration work has greatly increased. This has in turn led to an increase in the gove...

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Event and decadal-scale modeling of barrier island restoration designs for decision support

This paper outlines the development of a model framework to simulate the evolution of a barrier island given such challenges as sea level rise and sto...

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Blue Crab Abundance and Survival in a Fragmenting Coastal Marsh System

Louisiana’s coastal marshes are becoming increasingly fragmented due to sea level rise, subsidence, reduced sediment inflow from the Mississippi River...

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Flow Loss in Deltaic Distributaries: Impacts on Channel Hydraulics, Morphology, and Stability

The most comprehensive data sets documenting hydraulic and sediment transport regimes in the lower reaches of alluvial rivers come from systems that a...

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A review of transport of nanoparticles in porous media: From pore- to macroscale using computational methods

Transport and deposition of nanoparticles in saturated porous media is a topic of great importance in several fields of science and engineering. Collo...

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Integrated assessment of storm surge barrier systems under present and future climates and comparison to alternatives: a case study of Boston, USA

Large-scale barriers are a management option for present and increasing coastal storm flooding. The barriers have gates that are open most times excep...

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Effect of a Once in 100-Year Flood on a Subtropical Coastal Phytoplankton Community

Subtropical systems experience occasional severe floods, dramatically altering the phytoplankton community structure, in response to changes in salini...

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Long‐Term Carbon Sinks in Marsh Soils of Coastal Louisiana are at Risk to Wetland Loss

Coastal marshes are essential habitats for soil carbon accumulation and burial, which can influence the global carbon budget. Coastal Louisiana has ex...

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High site-fidelity in common bottlenose dolphins despite low salinity exposure and associated indicators of compromised health

More than 2,000 common bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) inhabit the Barataria Bay Estuarine System in Louisiana, USA, a highly productive estu...

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Developing a Modeling Framework to Simulate Compound Flooding: When Storm Surge Interacts With Riverine Flow

In this study, we investigated the possibility of using the Advanced Circulation (ADCIRC) model as the primary model to simulate the compounding effec...

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Assessing compound flooding potential with multivariate statistical models in a complex estuarine system under data constraints

Compound flooding may result from the interaction of two or more contributing processes, which may not be extreme themselves, but in combination lead ...

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Tradeoffs in habitat value to maximize natural resource benefits from coastal restoration in a rapidly eroding wetland: is monitoring land area sufficient?

Louisiana contains nearly 40% of estuarine herbaceous wetlands in the contiguous United States, supporting valuable ecosystem services and providing s...

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Assessing Habitat Change and Migration of Barrier Islands

Barrier islands are dynamic environments that experience gradual change from waves, tides, and currents, and rapid change from extreme storms. These i...

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Prospects for Gulf of Mexico Environmental Recovery and Restoration

Previous oil spills provide clear evidence that ecosystem restoration efforts are challenging, and recovery can take decades. Similar to the Ixtoc 1 w...

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Probabilistic rainfall generator for tropical cyclones affecting Louisiana

This study focuses on the development of a probabilistic rainfall generator for tropical cyclones (TCs) affecting Louisiana. We consider 12 storms mak...

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Developing bare-earth digital elevation models from structure-from-motion data on barrier islands

Unoccupied aerial systems can collect aerial imagery that can be used to develop structure-from-motion products with a temporal resolution well-suited...

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Global rates and patterns of channel migration in river deltas associated indicators ofchannel migration in river deltas

River deltas are dynamic systems whose channels can widen, narrow, migrate, avulse, and bifurcate to form new channel networks through time. With hund...

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Effects of sample gear on estuarine nekton assemblage assessments and food web model simulations

Long-term fisheries-independent sampling data inform population status and trends of species-specific biomass and are often used to drive biomass-base...

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Geomorphic and hydrodynamic impacts on sediment transport on the inner Louisiana shelf

To investigate the interactions among geomorphology, hydrodynamics, and sediment dynamics on the inner shelf offshore Louisiana, multiple acoustic and...

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Earth scientists: We're meeting on front line of world's climate challenge, in Louisiana

Louisiana faces many of the challenges that earth scientists across the world are working to solve this century: climate change, sea level rise, food ...

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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 th...

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Sediment Storage Partitioning in Alluvial Stratigraphy: The Influence of Discharge Variability

Numerical models of formation of alluvial stratigraphy often specify, either explicitly or implicitly, the proportion of channel and overbank sediment...

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Video Monitoring of Waterbird Colonies Reveals Novel Predator

Beach nesting waterbirds are among the most vulnerable groups of birds that are threatened by climate change, habitat loss, predation, and human distu...

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Sand dynamics in the Mekong River channel and export to the coastal ocean

Two field campaigns were conducted in the tidal and estuarine reach of the Sông Hậu distributary of the Mekong River to explore the dynamics of sand t...

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Regional scale sandbar variability: Observations from the U.S. Pacific Northwest

Understanding sandbar dynamics and variability is integral to developing a predictive capacity for nearshore flows, sediment transport, morphological ...

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Tributary channel networks formed by depositional processes

Understanding the detailed structure of landscape topography is important when assessing risks in coastal plain areas susceptible to the combined effe...

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Building Resilience through Collaborative Management of Coastal Protection and Restoration Planning in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, USA

This paper presents the results of a collaborative planning process to develop an integrated coastal restoration plan for Plaquemines Parish, Louisian...

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Assessing the Potential for Compound Storm Surge and Extreme River Discharge Events at the Catchment Scale with Statistical Models: Sensitivity Analysis and Recommendations for Best Practice

Two-sided extreme conditional sampling regularly is coupled with copula theory to assess the dependence between flood-risk drivers such as extreme pre...

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A global synthesis of the effectiveness of sedimentation-enhancing strategies for river deltas and estuaries

Deltas worldwide are at risk of elevation loss and drowning due to relative sea-level rise. Management strategies to restore or enhance sedimentation ...

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Following the Sand Grains

When longshore transport systems encounter tidal inlets, complex mechanisms are involved in bypassing sand to downdrift barriers. Here, this process i...

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A Model of the Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Soil Carbon Following Coastal Wetland Loss Applied to a Louisiana Salt Marsh in the Mississippi River Deltaic Plain

The potential for carbon sequestration in coastal wetlands is high due to protection of carbon (C) in flooded soils. However, excessive flooding can r...

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Supporting habitat restoration in the northern Gulf of Mexico through synthesis of data on multiple and interacting benefits and stressors

In response to the Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill of 2010 there is rapidly increasing investment in conservation and restoration actions designed ...

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The economics of sediment quality on barrier shoreline restoration

This paper depicts a simulation-based assessment of sediment quality on the performance of dedicated dredging projects for barrier island restoration ...

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Oil disturbance reduces infaunal family richness but does not affect phylogenetic diversity

Infaunal organisms are susceptible to disturbances such as hypoxia and sediment contamination; changes in infaunal community structure are therefore o...

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Shallow infaunal responses to the Deepwater Horizon event: implications for studying future oil spills

https://www.frontiersin.org/ar...Infaunal sedimentary communities underpin marine ecosystems worldwide. Understanding how disturbances such as oil spi...

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On the generation of high-resolution probabilistic design events capturing the joint occurrence of rainfall and storm surge in coastal basins

Coastal areas are subject to the joint risk associated with rainfall-driven flooding and storm surge hazards. To capture this dependency and the compo...

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Competing effects of vegetation density on sedimentation in deltaic marshes

Marsh vegetation, a definitive component of delta ecosystems, has a strong effect on sediment retention and land-building, controlling both how much s...

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Seismic expression and stratigraphic preservation of a coastal plain fluvial channel belt and floodplain channels on the Gulf of Mexico inner continental shelf

Subsurface fluvial deposits in coastline-proximal settings record the spatiotemporal evolution of the coastal landscape and may be viable repositories...

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Impacts of infauna, worm tubes, and shell hash on sediment acoustic variability and deviation from the viscous grain shearing model

Infauna influence geoacoustic parameters in surficial marine sediments. To investigate these effects, an experiment was conducted in natural sand-silt...

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The Weird and Wonderful World of Worms

Animals with long, skinny bodies are often called “worms,” but there are many kinds of worms—even in the ocean. Annelids (segmented worms) include gar...

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Hydrodynamic controls on sedimentary facies of tidal point bars: A case study in the Georgia coastal plain, USA

This study provides a basis for better identifying the hydrodynamic processes that shape coastal systems, such as estuarine and backbarrier environmen...

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Morphodynaic Preservation of Fluvial Channel Belts

The fluvial sedimentary record is largely composed of deposits from relatively common flow events, rather than more catastrophic scour-and-fill events...

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A community-informed transdisciplinary approach to coastal restoration planning: Maximizing the social and ecological co-benefits of wetland creation in Port Fourchon, Louisiana, USA

Residents who live and work around Port Fourchon were included in all stages of this research, including development and prioritization of potential r...

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Reevaluating the wave power-salt marsh retreat relationship

Salt marshes are threatened by rising sea levels and human activities, and a major mechanism of marsh loss is edge retreat or erosion. To understand a...

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Rhodium-SWMM: An open-source tool for green infrastructure placement under deep uncertainty

Green Infrastructure (GI) measures are increasingly used for climate adaptation in urban areas, but it remains a challenge to evaluate their effective...

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Vegetation-Driven Seasonal Sediment Dynamics in a Freshwater Marsh of the Mississippi River Delta

Deltaic wetlands are critically important coastal environments, upon which hundreds of millions of people depend. Managing and preserving them in the ...

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Characterizing the response of the coastal Rio Grande to upstream damming

This paper describes an evaluation of the Rio Grande's coastal response to the dam constructed along its waters in the 1950s. The paper concludes that...

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Hydrodynamics and Sediment-Transport Pathways along a Mixed-Energy Spit-Inlet System: A Modeling Study at Chincoteague Inlet (Virginia, USA)

Tidal-inlet systems are dynamic features that respond to short-term (e.g., storms) and longer-term processes (e.g., sea-level rise, changes in tidal p...

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Influence of Increased Freshwater Inflow on Nitrogen and Phosphorus Budgets in a Dynamic Subtropical Estuary, Barataria Basin, Louisiana

Coastal Louisiana is currently experiencing high rates of wetland loss and large-scale ecosystem restoration is being implemented. One of the largest ...

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Influence of Increased Freshwater Inflow on Nitrogen and Phosphorus Budgets in a Dynamic Subtropical Estuary, Barataria Basin, Louisiana

Coastal Louisiana is currently experiencing high rates of wetland loss and large-scale ecosystem restoration is being implemented. One of the largest ...

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Dissolved organic carbon dynamics and fluxes in Mississippi-Atchafalaya deltaic system impacted by an extreme flood event and hurricanes: a multi-satellite approach using Sentinel-2/3 and Landsat-8/9 Data

Transport of riverine and wetland-derived dissolved organic carbon (DOC) spanning tidal wetlands, estuaries, and continental shelf waters functionally...

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Sources of Clay-rich Sediment in Eberswalde Crater, Mars with Implications for Biopreservation Potential 

The geology of Eberswalde crater, Mars, indicates that it was once home to a neutral-pH, habitable lake early in Mars' history (about 2.0–3.5 billion ...

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Evaluation of emission reduction and other societal and environmental outcomes: Structured decision making for the Louisiana climate action plan

Climate action planning continues to accelerate rapidly across the globe as communities seek to prepare to thrive in an uncertain future. Climate acti...

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Salinity and Marine Mammal Dynamics in Barataria Basin: Historic Patterns and Modeled Diversion Scenarios

Understanding spatiotemporal patterns of salinity in Barataria Basin in coastal Louisiana is important to better understand and manage operations of e...

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Quantifying the Potential Contribution of Submerged Aquatic Vegetation to Coastal Carbon Capture in a Delta System from Field and Landsat 8/9-Operational Land Imager (OLI) Data with Deep Convolutional Neural Network

Submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) are highly efficient at carbon sequestration and, despite their relatively small distribution globally, are recogni...

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“You turn the tap on, the water's there, and you just think everything's fine”: a mixed methods approach to understanding public perceptions of groundwater management in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA

In Louisiana's Capital Area Groundwater Conservation District (CAGWCD), extensive groundwater withdrawals from the Southern Hills Aquifer System have ...

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Multi-criteria decision approach for climate adaptation of cultural resources along the Atlantic coast of the southeastern United States: Application of AHP method

Prioritizing climate adaptation actions is often made difficult by stakeholders and decision-makers having multiple objectives, some of which may be c...

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Vertical accretion trends project doughnut-like fragmentation of saltmarshes

Coastal saltmarshes keep pace with sea-level rise through in-situ production of organic material and incorporation of allochthonous inorganic sediment...

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Storm and tidal interactions control sediment exchange in mixed-energy coastal systems

Storms can have devasting effects on shorelines, causing flooding and the destruction of property and infrastructure. As global warming and the freque...

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Nature-based solutions as buffers against coastal compound flooding: Exploring potential framework for process-based modeling of hazard mitigation

As coastal regions face escalating risks from flooding in a changing climate, Nature-based Solutions (NbS) have garnered attention as promising adapta...

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Complex unstructured-grid groundwater modeling using centroidal Voronoi tessellation refinement and curve fitting

An unstructured grid is a powerful data structure for a proper depiction of various geological features such as faults and pinch-outs and for groundwa...

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Leveraging co-production within ecosystem restoration to maximize benefits to coastal birds

Coastal Louisiana's ecosystems are threatened by anthropogenic factors exacerbated by climate change induced sea-level rise. The 2010 Deepwater Horizo...

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Modeling potential benefits of fragmented marsh terrace restoration in Terrebonne bay, Louisiana: sediment processes interacting with vegetation and potential submerged aquatic vegetation habitat

Marsh terraces, constructed as a restoration and protection strategy, consist of a series of earthen berms in open water areas of the coastal wetland ...

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Shaping the Coast: Accounting for the Human Wildcard in Projections of Future Change

Coastal change and evolution are the product of physical drivers (e.g., waves) tightly coupled with human behavior. As climate change impacts intensif...

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Predicting Characteristic Length Scales of Barrier Island Segmentation in Microtidal Environments

Segmented barrier islands can be found in regions with small tidal ranges. In contrast to tidally dominated barriers, where inlet dynamics are thought...

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Identifying and filling critical knowledge gaps can optimize financial viability of blue carbon projects in tidal wetlands

One of the world’s largest “blue carbon” ecosystems, Louisiana’s tidal wetlands on the US Gulf of Mexico coast, is rapidly being lost. Louisiana’s str...

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Key drivers of vulnerability to rainfall flooding in New Orleans

Future urban stormwater flood risk is determined by the confluence of both climate-driven changes in precipitation patterns and the effectiveness of f...

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