Louisiana’s managed retreat — Model for coastal climate adaptation worldwide?
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Depopulation in the state’s coastal communities has been significant since Hurricane Katrina, an extremely powerful and destructive storm that hit the state in August 2005. It was responsible for 1833 deaths and approximately $108 billion in damage. Since Hurricane Katrina, about a quarter of the residents of Orleans Parish had left, and more than half had relocated from rural Cameron Parish.
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The authors have analysed a trend showing that Louisiana’s coastal areas are losing population since 2002 and argue that climate-driven depopulation is already happening, so they treat Louisiana’s coastal communities as “ground zero” case, whose experience on how depopulation takes place will become a preview for other coastal areas facing the same threats. The state’s ongoing depopulation is also creating a “first-mover advantage” in testing and refining policies and strategies to relocate households, infrastructure, and businesses to support successful climate adaptation.
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By accepting that the shoreline’s retreat is inevitable, the state can now begin planning for a managed relocation – an orderly, multigenerational movement of people and infrastructure to higher ground, setting an example for the world’s coastal communities to follow.
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