Policy: hurricane Katrina’s lessons for the world-opinion

Ten years after the devastation of the US Gulf coast, Edward B. Barbier calls for coastal protection plans like that adopted by Louisiana for the world's most vulnerable nations.

In this Nature comment article, Barbier says "Flaws and merits aside, Louisiana's 50-year coastal-planning strategy represents a new way of thinking about the long-term management of coasts. Resilience is the new aim — against short-lived natural disasters that have immediate and often extreme impacts, such as flooding and storm surges, and against long-term climatic changes that have more gradual impacts, such as sea-level rise, saline intrusion and erosion"

'The 2012 Louisiana master plan has demonstrated that it is possible to put all three lines of coastal defence in place — green, grey and social', says Barbier in his article.