A Conversation with CEO of The Water Institute on Louisiana’s Coastal Plan

By Beaux Jones 23 May, 2024

After the devastating hurricanes of 2005, the first Louisiana Coastal Master Plan was released. We sit down with Jones, President & CEO of the Water Institute, to unpack the plan & see how it is evolving with accelerating climate risks

After the devastating 2005 hurricanes, CPRA was formed as the single state agency for coastal restoration & protection in Louisiana - develops a Coastal Master Plan every 6 yrs
Since 2007 the plan has benefited >55k acres of coastal land, placed 193mn yd3 of sediment & restored 71.6 miles of barrier islands; $1.71bn outlined for FY 2025
In 2023’s plan, various climate scenarios & models were used including NOAA & CLARA model; the plan's science-based approach helps remove politics from contentious issues
Author: Beaux Jones
Beaux Jones is President and CEO for The Water Institute, an independent, non-profit, applied research institution based in Louisiana dedicated to advancing science and developing integrated methods to solve complex environmental and societal challenges. Prior to becoming the President and CEO, Jones was the General Counsel and Chief of Staff and was a key member of the leadership team, merging The Water Institute’s ongoing work in science, engineering, and resiliency with legal policy. Previously, Jones served as the environmental section chief for the Louisiana Department of Justice, where he represented the State of Louisiana and its agencies in a wide variety of matters ranging from environmental and coastal law to criminal and appellate law.
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After the devastating hurricanes of 2005, the first Louisiana Coastal Master Plan was released in 2007. It has since been updated in 2012, 2017 and again in 2023 Coastal Master Plan, How does the plan factor rising climate risks? How does it impact plans to protect against sea level rise (SLR)? We sit down with Beaux Jones, President & CEO of the Water Institute, to answer these questions and more. 

CWR: Thank you for talking with us Beaux. You worked on the state of Louisiana’s Coastal Master Plan, could you tell us more about what the plan aims to achieve and how it’s evolving to the accelerating climate landscape?

Beaux Jones (BJ): In 2005, Louisiana’s coastal regions were devastated by a one-two punch of hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Although coastal restoration and protection had been going on in the state for decades, it was not a coordinated or large-scaled effort. At the state level, coastal restoration and protection authorities were spread out among multiple agencies with multiple missions.

After 2005’s hurricanes, the CPRA was created as the single state agency for coastal restoration & protection…

…it develops the Coastal Master Plan every 6 yrs

Following the 2005 hurricane season, the state legislature passed Act 8 which created the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) and tasked it with being the single state agency for coastal restoration and protection. As part of the legislation that created CPRA, the organization was tasked with developing a comprehensive Coastal Master Plan every five years, now every six years, to guide the state’s coastal work on a more holistic and efficient approach. The state legislature knew, and it has been proven correct, that by mandating a periodic update of this Coastal Master Plan would allow for the integration of advances in science, modeling, data collection, lessons learned from ongoing restoration and protection activities, and an ever changing and dynamic coastal system. A project that made sense in 2007, when the first master plan was developed, may not make sense in 2012 due to changing coastal landscapes, land loss, subsidence, and the evolution of sea level rise forecasts for the Gulf Coast.

The plan guides the state’s actions in the most science-based, but community-informed ways

Through the iterations of the Coastal Master Plan starting in 2007 which was an amalgamation of decades of previous work, to the 2023 Coastal Master Plan, the scientific, policy, and public involvement aspects of the plan have evolved into a sophisticated look into the future. The goals of the plan are to preserve our rich history, culture, ecosystems, and natural resources that are threatened by ongoing land loss and flood risk.” In short, the plan is meant to guide the state’s actions in preserving coastal ecosystems and protecting communities in the most science-based, but community-informed ways through land loss reduction and storm surge risk reduction. These goals include the objectives of providing community flood protection, ensuring function of natural ecosystem processes, preserving coastal habitats that are so important to our communities and fisheries industry, sustaining the unique cultural heritage of coastal Louisiana, while recognizing we have a “working coast” that supports regionally and nationally important industries such as oil and gas, commercial river transportation, and agriculture.

Since 2007 it has benefited >55k acres of coastal land, placed 193mn yd3 of sediment & restored 71.6 miles of barrier islands…

…for FY 2025 $1.71bn of spending was outlined

Since 2007, the work guided by the state’s Coastal Master Plan has resulted in benefits to 55,807 acres of coastal land, 193 million cubic yards of sediment placed, 369 miles of improved levees and 71.6 miles of restored barrier islands. In addition to the updated Coastal Master Plan, CPRA also developed a yearly annual plan that gives further details on how and where money will be used for restoration and protection. For Fiscal Year 2025, the state has outlined $1.71 billion in spending with $1.3 billion of that going to construction for a total of 136 active projects in various stages of planning, engineering, and construction.

By its very nature, Louisiana’s Coastal Master Plan has to evolve with the accelerating climate landscape. The latest version in 2023 includes updates to the predictive models used to include sea level rise forecasts as well as vegetative responses to various sea level rise scenarios.

2023’s version includes updates to predictive models used to include SLR forecasts

In addition, the plan examines the need for structural risk reduction such as levees as well as nonstructural risk reductions such as elevating homes. As such, the Coastal Master Plan recognized there is not a single or even simple answer to meeting its goals, instead there needs to be a wide range of solutions developed, available, and implemented in order to provide the layered defences and restoration needed to address the current challenge and future unanticipated environmental challenges as a result of a changing climate landscape.

CWR: How is Louisiana preparing against the more chronic risks like sea level rise? Which scenarios does the Coastal Master Plan look at and where do you think the blind spots are?

BJ: Chronic risks such as sea level rise, and in coastal areas many times that is combined with subsidence, or the sinking of land, is a foundational risk faced by Louisiana and many coastal areas around the world.

Under climate change scenarios, intense rainfall events & hurricanes are expected to increase in the future

Then you have acute risks that with a changing climate could be considered chronic such as hurricanes and tropical storms as well as severe weather events such as a 2016 weather system that dumped as much as 20 inches of rain on southeast Louisiana over a two-day period leading to widespread inland flooding. Under climate change scenarios, intense rainfall events and intense hurricanes are expected to increase into the future.

In Louisiana’s latest Coastal Master Plan in 2023, the state tried to account for the uncertainty of what that relative sea level rise (sea level rise plus subsidence) by incorporating two scenarios. The first is the higher scenario that puts sea level rise at +2.5 feet by year 50 from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) intermediate/high scenario with the second at a lower scenario of +1.6 feet by year 50 from NOAA’s intermediate scenario. These two were chosen because the state had found in the 2017 Coastal Master Plan that sea level rise and subsidence had the greatest impact on model outputs so the lower scenario represents moderate future conditions while the higher scenario represents more severe conditions.

In addition to sea level rise, the state uses the Coastal Louisiana Risk Assessment (CLARA) model, developed initially to inform the 2017 Coastal Master Plan but significantly updated for use in the development of the 2023 Coastal Master Plan. CLARA is used to evaluate project effectiveness against tropical weather events of different sizes and intensities and identifies flood depths associated with different frequencies of inundation across the coast (e.g. the 100-year flood depth). Coupled with an Integrated Compartment Model which looks at land changes over time, CLARA predicts how future coastal changes would lead to increased risk of damage to buildings, vehicles, agricultural crops, ports, transportation infrastructure, and commercial assets.

In 2023’s plan, various scenarios and models were used incl. NOAA, CLARA model ++ …

…these analyses help characterize effects of projects on land loss / gain, how they affect flood risk, habitats & biomass over 50 yrs

CLARA also assesses failure probabilities of structural protection systems (levees, floodwalls, etc.). Clara’s ultimate output is an estimate of direct economic damage, in current dollars, from coastal flooding and an assessment of which potential master plan projects could reduce this type of risk.

The Planning Tool, optimization software developed by RAND, is a third analytical tool used in the Coastal Master Plan development process. The Planning Tool evaluates individual restoration and risk reduction projects as well as alternatives (or groups of projects) under multiple environmental scenarios of changing sea level rise and other forcing conditions.

The suite of analysis allows Louisiana to characterize proposed project effects on land loss and land gain and how those landscape changes affect coastal flood risk, coastal habitats, and biomass across the coast over the 50-year period.

As you can expect, there are a lot of moving parts in these models, each of which carries its own level of uncertainty. Decision Making Under Deep Uncertainty methods are useful when addressing long-term policy challenges that have multiple natural and socio-economic components, high levels of uncertainty, and multiple stakeholders who many times have different objectives.

In these situations, one way that The Water Institute is approaching problems is to identify proposed strategies and then stress test those strategies to identify conditions under which each strategy performs well or poorly. We have used this most recently in the context of urban stormwater management in New Orleans where there is a high degree of uncertainty in climate factors, geologic changes, infrastructure conditions, and future land use. The result is the display of a wide range of potential outcomes under a wide range of potential situations which can be used to identify a set of strategies that perform robustly over a range of uncertain future environmental and social conditions.

CWR: Critical infrastructures like the Port of Fourchon are located on the coast. How is Louisiana navigating rising coastal threats to trade and energy security?

BJ: Numerous facilities that have local, regional, national, and international importance are at risk from rising coastal threats and the State of Louisiana including port facilities like Port Fourchon, industries such as oil and gas and liquid natural gas facilities, and navigation along the Mississippi River and associated important navigation channels. As with much of coastal work in Louisiana, the approach depends on the location, the needs, and the science.

Port Fourchon, crucial for >95% of Gulf of Mexico’s deepwater energy production & base of operation for >250 cos…

…but sinking land & SLR = road to the port was flooding even on sunny days…

…so a large scale multi-party project has been implemented

For example, in the Port Fourchon area, one of the adaptation methods applied has been the elevation of the one road that accesses the report from inland areas. Port Fourchon is vital to the service of more than 95 percent of the Gulf of Mexico’s deepwater energy production and is home to more than 250 companies that use the port as a base of operation.

Sinking coastal land and rising sea level meant that the surface road to the port was flooding on sunny days if the wind was just right and so a major project has been undertaken to elevate the roadway for more year-round service.

In addition to this more traditional infrastructure approach, the Institute has been working with the port and several oil and gas partners on the best way to beneficially use dredged materials from the port for marsh creation, restoration, and protection.

Port Fourchon has large-scale dredging planned associated with port expansion and maintenance and along with partners Chevron, Shell, and Danos, is working with the Institute to develop how this dredged material can best be used to meet several goals including better protection for port facilities and neighboring communities as well as potential for blue carbon sequestration in the created ecosystems.

This “Partnership for Our Working Coast” continues to be a fruitful Public-Private-NGO partnership and is a great way to expand not only resilience, but the entities who are involved in the work.

CWR: Like Louisiana, Hong Kong and many of Asia’s cities are coastal and are highly vulnerable to coastal risks. What’s one piece of advice you would give to governments when it comes to holistic coastal planning?

BJ: Through the lens of what we’ve seen accomplished in the Louisiana with the development and support for the Coastal Master Plan process, the one piece of advice I would have is to develop a science-based approach that includes not only government officials, decision makers, and scientists, but also the important stakeholders of the coast from residents to fishermen to industry.

The science-based approach removes politics from contentious issues when there’s competing interests

The science-based approach helps remove politics from what can be contentious issues when there are competing interests on the coast. At the same time, involving a wide range of stakeholders in developing the process, not just commenting on a finished product, helps everyone see how that science is developed, understand the tradeoffs necessary, and build consensus.

Not everyone agrees with everything that is in Louisiana’s Coastal Master Plan, but everyone agrees that it is a plan that represents a science-based approach that is tempered by local needs and concerns. This massive effort every six years in science and community involvement is why the plan receives unanimous approval from the state legislature every time and why it can now boast more than $1 billion a year in spending on restoration and protection efforts.

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