Louisiana's Strategic Adaptations for Future Environments

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

• How the State of Louisiana is adapting to its current coastal challenges, including land loss and future flood risk
• How authentic engagement in public planning processes can have a direct impact on our lives
• Innovative solutions co-designed by the LA SAFE team and community residents

MORE SESSION DETAILS

Following 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, the State of Louisiana recognized the long-term connection between coastal land loss, subsidence, and sea-level rise and their collective effects on flood risk. In an effort to combat these conditions, the state created the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, and, in doing so, has made significant investments in modeling out future land loss and flood risk on a 50-year time horizon. Up to this point, this modeling data has predominantly been used to inform projects designed to restore coastal wetlands or provide structural flood protections. Louisiana’s Strategic Adaptations for Future Environments (LA SAFE) is an initiative launched in 2017 and funded by a $40 million grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s National Disaster Resilience Competition. In 2017, LA SAFE used the state’s land-loss and future flood-risk data to complete regional and local plans across a six-parish (county) target area in an attempt to orient current and future growth=management and land-use and development strategies in alignment with that modeling data. Learn about the process of developing this planning effort, as well as the outcomes derived from that work.