Louisiana's Response to Extreme Weather

Front matter

Extreme Weather and Society

Ee ,

Shirley Laska Editor

Foreword

Projections of future extreme weather; environmental history; social diversity, inequality, and vulnerability; environmental justice; impacts of historic disasters; actual and potential impacts of policies designed to mitigate disaster losses and adapt to changing coastal conditions; distinctive local and regional cultural traditions; cultures and livelihoods at risk; and recommendations for future risk reduction and adaptation policies and actions—all these topics and more are addressed in this comprehensive volume, which promises to be an indispensable resource for all those seeking to respond to hazard-related environmental stressors, both in Louisiana and beyond.

These pages contain both broad and in-depth analyses of the “wicked problem” posed by hazards and climate change. As several authors note, in contrast with problems that have specific solutions, even difficult ones, wicked problems are highly complex and novel, difficult to define and frame, and subject to multiple and often divergent interpretations of the nature of the problem and how to address it. When policies and programs are created to deal with wicked problems, those solutions often lead to more problems. Adding to this challenge, climate change has been labeled a “super-wicked problem” (Levin et al. 2012) for four reasons. First, there is pressure to act; time is running out to address the problem. Second, those who are trying to reduce the risks posed by climate change, from individuals to corporations to nation-states, are also contributing to it. This means that adequate responses to climate change will require radical, fundamental changes in behavior and social organization. Third, climate change poses a major global collective action challenge, but there is no overarching authority that can compel or manage action. Fourth, both current and proposed solutions focus on near-term timeframes, but addressing the problem requires long-term thinking and strategies that must be sustained over time—which is almost unthinkable under contemporary governance regimes and in light of conflicts over the significance (and even existence) of the problem. The authors in this volume rightly characterize climate change adaptation as a multigenerational challenge, but policies can shift whenever political power changes hand.

vi Foreword

The chapters in this volume explore various facets of this super-wicked problem. Among the things we learn in these pages is that the entire state of Louisiana is at risk from land loss, sea level rise, and intensified storms and flooding. Trying to address those vulnerabilities through federal post-disaster mitigation funding, one disaster at a time, or on a project-by-project basis, is not an effective approach, but current policies, such as FEMA’s emphasis on post-disaster mitigation projects (as opposed to pre-disaster ones), shape state and community mitigation options. As the discussions here argue, in the current policy environment, the emphasis should be on forward-facing, system-focused post-disaster strategies that are based on the best available science, but that are also just and sensitive to the needs, values, and preferences of the members of affected communities—what the editor refers to as exceptional recovery for essential resilience. At the same time, steps must be taken to move toward policies that call for large-scale programs that are not tied to specific events.

Attempts to address the conundrums of climate change and associated extremes are fraught with difficulty. With respect to coastal land loss, an environmental risk that Louisiana faces more than any other state in the nation, the book documents how the concept of restoration may be embraced in the abstract, but on-the-ground projects to address land loss are often contested. Ambitious restoration projects like the state’s Coastal Master Plan represent a major step forward, but they overemphasize technocratic and engineering-based approaches while downplaying the importance of local preferences, and they can be out of step with efforts aimed at strengthening community resilience. Programs that are broad in geographic scope are appropriate for the scale of the problem of land loss, but local voices, particularly those of marginalized groups, may be muted by such efforts. Similarly, managed retreat from rapidly disappearing coastal areas makes complete sense conceptually, but the chapter authors show how complex this process is in practice. For example, what constitutes a fair and just relocation process for tribal peoples with a prior history of forced relocation? How can the distinctive cultures of coastal natural resource communities be maintained when environmental refugees are required to abandon the places where those cultures flourished? What happens to place-based livelihood strategies and family traditions when communities are uprooted? Relocation from endangered coastal regions means relocation to somewhere else—typically somewhere else in Louisiana. However, what if those new locations are lacking in adequate services, personnel, and administrative capacity and are economically depressed—as many rural communities in Louisiana are— and what if the residents of receiving communities are less than welcoming? What if those receiving communities are also vulnerable to disasters like the so-called unexpected flooding of 2016?

This volume addresses in rich detail the aftermath and recovery following Hurricane Katrina. The importance of a political economy analysis of hazards and disasters is a thread that runs through these discussions. Katrina’s devastation was caused in no small measure by the activities of the oil and gas industry and the interest that promoted projects such as the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet (MR-GO). Occurring in a historical context of spatial racism, that devastation disproportion-

Foreword vii ately fell upon the poor, racialized, and minoritized residents of New Orleans. We learn in these chapters how those residents were further marginalized during the recovery process. Deprived of public housing, ignored in many recovery plans, priced out of a rising rental market in part because of the scarcity of living-wage jobs, and unable to cope with the loss of kin and friendship networks and neighborhood solidary, many never returned. And we learn how, guided by neoliberal logics of recovery such as land speculation, privatization, and the reduction of public services, the “new” New Orleans is becoming whiter, less affordable, and more gentrified, but spatially remains strongly racialized. These and other research findings provide a strong critique of putatively color-blind policies that are blind to their effects on people of color.

Discussions in this volume also show how, in the context of major disasters and accelerating land loss, Louisiana has become a laboratory for new efforts to alleviate those problems, such as the LA SAFE (Louisiana’s Strategic Adaptations for Future Environments) program and the Gentilly Resilience District in New Orleans. Both were funded primarily through the National Disaster Resilience Competition, a collaboration of the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Rockefeller Foundation. In these chapters, questions arise regarding whether such projects, developed with limited funding on a one-time basis, are replicable and scalable. The broader feasibility and efficacy of these and other experiments can only be assessed over time.

As some chapter authors note, issues of federalism inevitably arise in any discussion of hazards and disasters. The contradictions of federalism are yet another example of the wickedness of the problems discussed here. Within the US federal system, decisions in areas that are important for hazard mitigation, such as land use, are largely outside the purview of federal and state jurisdictions. Federal government requirements like the Disaster Mitigation Act of 2000 cannot ensure that the mitigation plans that are required by the law are adequate—or that they are implemented. Federal post-disaster assistance programs require financial participation on the part of states and local jurisdictions, with the latter showing considerable variation in their ability to meet matching requirements. Because specialized skills are needed to even apply for some federal forms of assistance, that assistance favors well-resourced, high-capacity large cities, as opposed to smaller communities and rural areas.

At several points in the book, the authors argue for the importance of state action in disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. The importance of states is inarguable, particularly in the current policy environment, in which federal leadership has rolled back measures such as the flood risk management standard and federal climate change action planning and has withdrawn from the Paris Climate Agreement. States are considered closer to local communities than a distant federal bureaucracy and more sensitive to the distinctive concerns of different populations and interest groups within their jurisdiction. At the same time, in a neoliberal political economy, many states lack the capacity to ensure the provision of even basic services, much less those associated with hazard mitigation and climate change adaptation. Some states are not politically inclined to develop such capacity.

viii Foreword

Moreover, as the Louisiana case illustrates only too well, state governments are susceptible to capture by powerful economic interests, to the detriment of many of their residents. The same is the case for local communities, whose decisions, absent significant organized opposition, tend to conform to growth machine imperatives.

Researchers have a tendency to identify problems and leave their solutions to others. This is not the approach taken by the authors in this volume. Virtually, every chapter proposes strategies for ameliorating problems like those associated with population relocation and including marginalized groups in adaptation decision-making and ends with policy recommendations. Quite frequently, the recommendations focus on the importance of framing and tackling problems holistically, blending a knowledge of the technical and scientific aspects of particular challenges with an understanding of their human dimensions. Louisiana itself is a testament to the inadequacy of technological fixes, from levees that provided a false sense of protection and then failed repeatedly to projects like MR-GO which caused erosion and contributed to Katrina’s storm surge.

At many points throughout this volume, the authors refer to Louisiana as a canary in the coal mine, a harbinger of things to come, and a microcosm in which to analyze national and global disaster and climate change challenges. As these authors show, although undeniably unique in so many respects, Louisiana illustrates starkly the kinds of issues with which many other communities, states, and nations are currently grappling and will continue to be forced to contend with as climate change progresses and intense hydrometeorological events occur with greater frequency. Both the issues and dilemmas identified and the recommended actions proposed here are relevant for communities across the nation and around the world.

University of Colorado Emerita Kathleen Tierney Boulder, Colorado

Reference

Levin, K., Cashore, B., Bernstein, S., & Auld, G. (2012). Overcoming the trajectory of super-wicked problems: Constraining our future selves to ameliorate global climate change. Policy Sciences, 45(2), 123-152.

Preface

When a particular location is selected to be the topic of an edited volume, the editor has to select contributors who have experience with that location and have done research there on the topic of the book within the discipline(s) sought for it. Simple? Well, no. One has to interactively identify appropriate subtopics—in this case for human/social response to extreme weather risk and adaptation to it—with what scientists of that discipline have studied within the locale, i.e., Louisiana. However, the assignment from the “Extreme Weather and Society” series editors Bill Sprigg, an atmospheric scientist, and Sheila Steinberg, an environmental/social scientist, added to the requirements: to include multiple disciplines, not just my discipline of sociology, because they believe in and are approaching the series to enhance “an emerging trans-disciplinary field of study of extreme weather.”

They expected contributors from multiple disciplines to be included in one of their series volumes and that those selected should offer a logical weave of findings and policy/practice implications for extreme weather/climate change adaptation. Given my career of transdisciplinary research collaboration as well as numerous assignments to multidisciplinary advisory boards within Louisiana and in other states and serving on the National Academy of Sciences multidisciplinary teams for environmental/societal risk topics, I was already a “practitioner” of the approach and thus enthusiastically sprung to the challenge.

This book honors the series editors’ goals with 10 disciplines represented in the 22 contributors, including 1 by a biophysical scientist and 4 chapters having multiple authors from more than one discipline. I believe that the disciplines of the contributors selected are all very relevant to the serious societal need to swiftly and appropriately address the adaptation to extreme weather including climate change.

In order to ensure that such a transdisciplinary edited volume would be approachable to more than specialists of an individual chapter’s author(s)’ discipline, 5 of the 11 chapter manuscripts were reviewed by relevant expert reviewers from different disciplines than their authors, 4 chapters had coauthors from different disciplines,

! Anthropology, architecture, geography, history, marine science, planning, public administration, sociology, urban studies and GIS.

x Preface and the other 2 were reviewed by the book’s editor who does not have their specialty but is a specialist of the their topics. The reviewers were selected based on the interaction between the editor and first author of each chapter with those reviewers selected having very solid credentials. All of the authors were very positive about having their manuscripts be subjected for review because they were committed to the series editors’ goal of transdisciplinary access and utility. Each contributor responded fully to suggestions made by the reviewers.

A State Case: Louisiana Social Science Resources for Climate Change Adaptation

No different from any other resource, how a state fares in providing human resources able to address extreme weather and climate change will contribute to its success doing so. To reinforce this point, I call your attention to the recently created Social Science Extreme Events Research (SSEER) interactive map, funded by the National Science Foundation and created by the Natural Hazards Center at the University of Colorado. Into the software is inputted the existence of social scientists engaged in extreme events research, their credentials, and where they are located. This GIS product recognizes the importance of the location of social scientists to achieve “communicating ongoing project or research outcomes to affected communities and decision-makers.” While just launched, it will be interesting to follow how many Louisiana social scientists register. A recent report on this question did not show Louisiana as having a robust number of such researchers. The comments of a presenter at a recent meeting on the Sacramento Delta who had done a literature search on social science research on deltas reported very limited findings: “Only research on New Orleans and the Mardi Gras culture.”?

To pursue this part of the Louisiana case, social science resources, the chapter authors were examined. Approximately half of the 21 authors of the chapters have been trained at Louisiana universities and half outside of the state. Fourteen hold academic or nonprofit organization positions within the state, and seven are in academic institutions outside of the state. The latter are affiliated with universities along the Gulf Coast and in the South, Northeast and California.

Three of these scientists outside of the state have left positions within Louisiana to go to these institutions in other states. A possible explanation is that scientists experienced with climate change research are in demand by other areas struggling with similar challenges and thus have out-of-state opportunities. This appears to be the case with the small group examined. Future science human resource research will be important to reveal how scientists respond in their personal careers to

°? EAGER: Interdisciplinary and Social Science Extreme Events Research, Natural Hazards Center, University of Colorado. https://hazards.colorado.edu/news/research-projects/eager-interdisciplinary-and-social-science-extreme-events-research. Accessed January 27, 2019.

3Personal communication, January 30, 2019.

Preface xi extreme weather challenges and whether these challenges harm or enhance a state-level “pool” of extreme weather scientists focused upon a particular state’s adaptation challenges.

What is believed by this editor is that extreme weather adaptation should include consideration by universities within a state and by state management boards of higher education of whether the state is committed to creating and nurturing adequate numbers of scientists specializing in these topics within the state’s universities. A recent effort introduced by the Louisiana State University Sea Grant Program reflects well on Louisiana in this matter to overcome the shortfall noted above because it is focused on enhancing state specialists among the young faculty. The program is called La D-I-A:

(It) supports scholars interested in applying their work to real world problems and sharing these discoveries with diverse audiences. By encouraging multidisciplinary research efforts and strong links with coastal communities, the Louisiana Discovery-Integration-Application Program (La D-I-A) connects science, communication and coastal residents. In essence, the program provides a two-way conduit between university research results and community needs.*

This is a very encouraging development in Louisiana’s need for very extensive research on extreme weather and climate change and adaptation to it and the ability of scientists to collaborate with the state’s communities supporting them to adapt better to extreme weather and climate change.

It is with gratitude that I thank the chapter contributors for working with me on their chapters and their refinements. The book would also not have been possible without the assistance of two key individuals—both recent graduates of Louisiana universities—who prepared the chapters for submission (Olivia Porter, MURP, JD) and who created detailed maps or refined the many figures necessary to enhance such topics (Julie Torres, MS ES). Iam honored to have had such a team.

More authors than would be expected had to complete their chapters while moving to new positions or being occupied by family responsibilities such as the arrival of three babies and one grandbaby. They have asked me to dedicate our book to these very young twenty-first-century recipients of the adaptation successes that their parents, grandparent, and other authors of this book are contributing in support of their futures.

To Willa, Elias, James, and Pia.

New Orleans, LA, USA Shirley Laska

“https://www.laseagrant.org/outreach/ladia/

Contents

Shirley Laska

Part I Louisiana’s Risks Anticipating the Future Challenges to Other U.S. Coastal Communities

2 Managing Risks in Louisiana’s Rapidly Changing Coastal Zone .. . Donald F. Boesch

Part II Climate Adaptation Challenges and Solutions

3 Connecting the Dots: The Origins, Evolutions, and Implications of the Map that Changed Post-Katrina Recovery Planning Ut New Oras 2535 coe r tinan whee EEEE EEr O Zachary Lamb

4 Antagonisms of Adaptation: Climate Change Adaptation Kevin Fox Gotham and Megan Faust

5 Adapting to a Smaller Coast: Restoration, Protection, Scott A. Hemmerling, Monica Barra, and Rebecca H. Bond

Part III Relocation and Resettlement: An Extreme Adjustment 6 Community Resettlement in Louisiana: Learning Nathan Jessee

Kristina J. Peterson xiii

Contents

Part IV Types/Locations of Communities and Their Responses to Extreme Weather: Urban

Post-disaster Development Dilemmas: Advancing Landscapes Anna Livia Brand and Vern Baxter

Reimagining Housing: Affordability Crisis and Its Role Andreanecia M. Morris and Lucas Diaz

Part V Types/Locations of Communities and Their Responses to Extreme Weather: Suburban/Mid State

The 2016 Unexpected Mid-State Louisiana Flood:

With Special Focus on the Different Rescue and Recovery Michelle Annette Meyer, Brant Mitchell, Shannon Van Zandt,

and Stuart Nolan

Part VI Types/Locations of Communities and Their Responses to Extreme Weather: Rural Alessandra Jerolleman

Part VII Types/Locations of Communities and Their Responses to Extreme Weather: Coupled Coastal-Inland

Regional Resilience: Building Adaptive Capacity and Community Well-Being Across Louisiana’s Dynamic Coastal—Inland COMMMUUNN, 24 6.5 64500. Kianheeuedaeien eve been nie ER RE Traci Birch and Jeff Carney

Appendix 1: Twenty-First-Century Flooding in Louisiana:

Chapter 1 A Introduction to the Book: “Ahead Geek for of the Curve” Shirley Laska

1.1 Louisiana: A Whole State with Extreme Weather Challenges

The coastal areas of Louisiana have been subject to extreme weather ever since the Mississippi River began to create the Delta land 7000+ years ago (Roberts 1997). The extreme weather first impacted the indigenous population that has lived here for millennia and, over the last 300+ years, multi-ethnic immigrants, refugees and enslaved peoples who settled among them (Owens 2015). While inland floods have occurred intermittently over the decades, the two very extreme rain events in the spring and summer of 2016 began to change the framing of the state’s extreme weather experiences: No longer was Louisiana two “states” — the coast subject to extreme weather effects . . . and a safer inland. The image of the state in the eyes of government entities, of inland riverine residents, was changing, and likely observers from outside of the state were also seeing the state differently: It is now a state subject to extreme weather throughout — urban, rural, coastal, and inland watersheds. And that extreme weather is exacerbated by climate change. Weather specialists declared that in Louisiana, both Hurricane Isaac in 2012 and the summer 2016 inland storms were enhanced by it — stalling the storms’ advance and thus generating their extreme precipitation effects (Wiel et al. 2017; Peterson et al. 2016; Kossin 2018).

S. Laska (%3) University of New Orleans Emerita and Lowlander Center, New Orleans, LA, USA e-mail: slaska@uno.edu

© The Author(s) 2020 1 S. Laska (ed.), Louisiana’s Response to Extreme Weather, Extreme Weather and Society, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-27205-0_1

When these inland floods occurred, it became evident to this book’s editor — a researcher and adaptation! practitioner studying Louisiana flood risk for about 35 years and having begun research on an inland flood of 1983 — that sadly, the whole state had now moved into an extreme weather state category. I believe this change warrants study of Louisiana as a unit: examining and understanding better the level of experience and response embodied within the geographic/political entity of an American state and its government bureaucracies, its communities and citizens. It is hoped that this research will benefit both Louisiana and — as an exemplar — other states, whose extreme weather risk is increasing like Louisiana’s has done or is likely to increase in the near future as the new US Global Change Research Committee Report (Jay et al. 2018) portends.

The timeliness of a statewide “extreme weather” book became quickly obvious when state and local officials initiated after the 2016 floods adaptation programs additional to those focused only on the coast. As the book took form, some eight state extreme weather adaptation programs and one city program began to take shape. Also, adaptation as reflected in the new programs was no longer siloed in one or another relevant state agency. The watershed program was created and implemented by five state agencies, and the coastal restoration’s community/parish capacity and capability study approached the project so that the findings could be shared with the watershed program and possibly expanded statewide (see Sect. 1.3.1). The evolving programs demonstrated an appreciation of the interconnectivity organizationally and experientially of the challenges for the whole state. The “connection” had been made between coastal adaptation and inland adaptation to begin to grow statewide adaptation as the goal.

This chapter has the following aims:

1.2 Introduce the key Louisiana extreme weather and climate-change induced conditions that prompted the preparation of this book as well as demonstrate adaptation and adaptation risk to Louisiana’s most current extreme weather and disastrous flood levels of the Mississippi River, which are likely climate change-enhanced threat.

1.3 Summarize the recent adaptation programs that have been created within the state. Then argue that an effective way in which climate-induced extreme weather adaptation can occur in the earlier stages of this climate adaptation phenomenon is through existing federal disaster recovery programs — as the new Louisiana programs are currently being funded. How to achieve climate adaptation through this means is diagrammed, and the details are presented. The process of exceptional recovery from disasters if successful results in essential resiliency — resiliency embracing “just,’ comprehensive qualities — and “grows” climate change adaptation.

'Climate change adaptation is adjustment in ecological, social, or economic systems in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli and their effects or impacts. It refers to changes in processes, practices, and structures to moderate potential damages or to benefit from opportunities associated with climate change (Burton et al. 2001). Climate change mitigation refers to actions that reduce the human contribution to the planetary greenhouse effect (National Climate Assessment 2014).

1.4 “Place” the book’s chapters about Louisiana as expanding the exceptional recovery/essential resilience model; about one-half of the chapters directly address one of the two very related concepts. In addition, four chapters describe/ expand the topic of Louisiana’s new adaptation programs and are identified in Table 1.1. Finally, the chapters which analyze challenges of traditional disaster recovery will be identified because these challenges will only be exacerbated by climate-induced extreme weather events and thus must be appreciated and their solutions addressed. It is critical not to split the challenges and solutions to traditional disaster recovery from those that are emerging from climate-induced extreme weather events.

1.5 End the chapter with a challenge to the readers: Will the recommendations offered by the chapter authors for extreme weather adaptation be more successfully accomplished and achieve their goals if the states/communities — subnational units of government — are the true managers of the adaptation process instead of the federal government which is emphasized at present? While the consideration of community adaptation has been embraced in the twenty-first century (Burton et al. 2001; NASEM 2018; Rockefeller n.d.), it is argued that the technical aspects and especially the financial aspects of turning from federal management/control to state and local units have not been adequately considered. Therefore, I propose that shifting to subnational levels is not adequately informed if these real issues are not considered and addressed. This section will offer considerations —both pro and con- for this change to subnational adaptation emphasis and encourage robust research to achieve the critical “essential” adaptation success needed.

1.2 The Louisiana Case: Extreme Weather and Climate Change Experiences

The state of Louisiana’s twenty-first-century flood inundation is represented by nine individual extreme storm maps that were combined to create the composite map (Fig. 1.1). In addition to the 9 storms represented in the composite map, another 14 storms occurred that caused additional flooding, mostly within the same areas as the 9 storms represented (see Appendix 1 for the full list). No such map as the composite in Fig. 1.1 was available for use in this book; it had to be constructed. Not to have state-level composite maps that are kept up to date and readily available for researchers, practitioners, and government officials, especially for states subject to so much extreme weather flooding, is a significant gap of needed information for addressing extreme weather events and adaptation to them. (See Appendix 1 for expanded description of the types of data used for the included maps, the methods of map creation, and the recommendations for enhancing map resources.)

The majority of Louisiana floods can be traced to 54 tropical weather events, the third largest number that impacted a US state within the last 166 years. Texas (64) and Florida (117) are the only two states with more (National Hurricane Center

Hurricane Katrina (2005) Hurricane Rita (2005) Hurricane Gustav (2008)

Hurricane Ike (2008) i Spring 2011 Hurricane Isaac (2012)

March 2016 i August 2016 Hurricane Harvey (2017)

Fig. 1.1 Flood inundation coverage maps for selected hurricanes and intense rainfall events in Louisiana during the twenty-first century (top) and composite flood map (bottom)

2018). The inland flooding that prompted the creation of this volume (spring and summer 2016 and December 2018) set river records for flood levels that ranged from 15% to 30% higher than previous records that were set as far back as up to 66 years ago (Schleifstein 2019).

The most serious hurricane experience for Louisiana was Hurricane Katrina in 2005, the deadliest and costliest of mainland US storms ever (NHC 2018). Climate change-related qualities of very warm Gulf of Mexico waters and increasing sea level rise (Union of Concerned Scientists 2017a) exacerbated the storm’s impacts, especially the significant storm surge that the public was not warned of adequately because it was not included in the Saffir-Simpson scale.’ Unfortunately Katrina became a “perfect storm” due to these storm and atmospheric qualities combined with weak storm protection (Day et al. 2007), and an ill-conceived ship navigation channel cut through the marsh directly targeted to New Orleans (Freudenburg et al. 2009).

Louisiana is also ranked number one in two other extreme conditions — coastal land loss and sea level rise. Coastal Louisiana was built from sediment suspended in Mississippi River waters flowing down the continent that was deposited in fanlike patterns as the river swished back and forth on the Louisiana coastline that began at the border with the Pleistocene uplands (see Fig. 2.2 in Boesch). However, levees built by early settlers and strengthened after the massive 1927 flood restricted the continued capacity of these depositions to replenish the marshland created by the earlier flows (Couvillion et al. 2011). Resulting marsh subsidence and erosion are exacerbated by saltwater intrusion into the marshes via the thousands of canals created over more than a century of oil and gas exploration (Turner and McClenachan 2018; DeLaune and Pezeshki 1994). Saltwater intrusion via these canals kills the grasses and other plants that hold the marsh soil, resulting in more soil eroding into the water and being washed out into the Gulf, thus causing land loss. Since 1932, approximately 2000 square miles of coastal Louisiana have been lost (Couvillion et al. 2011).

Relative sea level rise is predicted to be higher in the coastal Mississippi Delta than anywhere in the world by the end of this century (Parris et al. 2012). This is the result of the subsidence just discussed combined with eustatic (global) sea level rise (Rovere et al. 2016) caused by increasing freshwater input and temperature-induced thermal expansion of the world’s oceans (Pahl 2016). New measurement techniques identify even more sea level rise on the Louisiana coast than earlier described (Keogh and Tornqvist 2019). The ramifications of such an increase in elevation of the Gulf of Mexico waters along coastal Louisiana are demonstrated by the dramatic number of Louisiana communities expected to be chronically inundated by 2035 in the intermediate sea level rise scenario: some 59 Louisiana communities, including New Orleans, comprise two-thirds of the 91 US communities coast-wide predicted to be so harmfully affected (Union of Concerned Scientists 2017b) if the state’s

°The Saffir-Simpson scale failed to adequately consider the powerful storm surge caused by Katrina. Seven years later surge measurement was added to National Weather Service forecasting tools (National Weather Service 2012).

coastal restoration efforts are not adequately funded (Davis and Boyer 2016), implemented, and effective.

Finally, as this manuscript is being submitted to Springer in early summer, 2019, the Mississippi River is in the midst of the longest period of high-flood stage in the history of its flood measurement and has surpassed the duration of the 1927 flood (from midwinter expected through midsummer). This event has been caused by extreme storm patterns in the upper Midwest resulting in record-breaking flood elevations all throughout midcontinent rivers that feed the Mississippi. The extremeness of the patterns is suspected to be caused by climate change (Stott 2016). Discussing this particular example of Louisiana extreme weather risk provides the bridge between the just-described presentation of Louisiana’s frequent and severe storms via the twenty-first-century storms and adaptation, including adaptation risk, the two concepts that are the focus of this book.