Last week, the University’s Coastal Sustainability Studio received a two year, $200,000 climate change grant from The Kresge Foundation to support undergraduate and graduate research. The grant, the first the University received from The Kresge Foundation, aims to foster a partnership between CSS and the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority.
Jeffrey Carney, CSS director and assistant professor of architecture, said the grant will help start an extension of the Louisiana Resiliency Assistance Program, a disaster recovery unit and CSS initiative.
CSS sees vanishing land as an immediate problem for Louisiana.
Between 80 and 90 percent of Louisiana’s economy is related to coastal goods and services, parts of which include $3 billion in annual fisheries revenue, more than 300,000 port-related jobs and two million residents, according to the grant.
“These aren’t just beach houses,” Carney said. “These are communities.”
Last year, a Kiplinger business forecast projected Louisiana as the No. 1 “state most at risk of disaster” out of 10 states.
The grant will help connect developers with environmental concerns, something Laura Larkin, CSS coordinator, said the studio helps accomplish by connecting different disciplines. Carney said the studio’s overall goal is to assist community planners in understanding environmental change.
Carney said a community planner could range from a mayor to a mall developer.
“[Louisianians] are losing land faster than the sea is rising,” Carney said. “If you look at a map of what it will look like in 100 years, nearly half of the southern part is gone.”
Louisiana lost 1,880 square miles of land since the 1930s, according to the Louisiana’s 2012 Coastal Master Plan, a CPRA publication providing ideas to alleviate the situation on the Louisiana coast,
“This is happening right now; it isn’t a question of when it will happen in the future,” Carney said.
“These aren’t just beach houses. These are communities.”