Louisiana—which faces faster levels of sea-level rise than any other land on Earth—could lose as many as 2,800 square miles of its coast over the next 40 years and about 27,000 buildings will need to be flood-proofed, elevated or bought out, the New Orleans Advocate reported.
These dire predictions were pulled from a new rewrite of the state’s Coastal Master Plan for 2017 released Tuesday by the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority.
The plan, first introduced in 2007 post- Hurricane Katrina, acts as a 50-year blueprint for restoring the Pelican State’s rapidly disappearing coastal wetlands and protecting the state’s natural resources and communities. Louisiana’s Legislature unanimously approved the 2007 and 2012 versions.
The new plan, which is now out for public review and must be voted up or down by the Legislature, calls for 120 new projects, including a $6 billion proposal to protect or vacate properties in areas that are at risk of experiencing a 100-year storm. The plan also aims to restore 800 to 1,200 square miles of wetlands and build new levees and flood walls to protect against hurricane storm surges.
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Photo credit: Bob McMillan; edit: Chris Woodrich (FEMA Photo Library) via Wikimedia Commons
