April 3, 2007

2007 Schad Symposium
April 3rd 2007
2-3:30 p.m. (tentatively)
Hodson Hall, JHU

Challenges in Restoring the Mississippi River Delta: Linking Ecological Forecasting with Coastal Engineering
Sponsored by the Departments of Geography & Environmental Engineering and Civil Engineering

Robert R. Twilley
Director, Wetland Biogeochemistry Institute
Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences
Louisiana State University

Abstract: Hurricanes Katrina and Rita brought national attention to the deterioration of the Mississippi River Delta wetlands. In previous decades, up to 50 square miles per year have been lost to subsidence and development. The consequences are loss of flood protection capability and ecological functions. Restoration of the Delta became a national priority even before the devastation of the 2005 hurricane season.

Restoration is predicated on an understanding of ecosystem succession; and ecosystem trajectories require causal linkages between disturbances, ecological effects, and ecosystem response. To meet these challenges in developing a restoration program, we developed the Coastal Louisiana Ecosystem Assessment and Restoration (CLEAR) framework for a coastal ecosystem forecasting system. The challenge was to build a tool that could develop systems ecology (with both conceptual and numerical models) to forecast ecosystem response to different elements of engineering design. Rising sea level, storm disturbance, and hydrologic changes in dynamic coastal environments such as deltas challenge the capacity of restoration projects to effectively anticipate ecosystem state change. Conceptual frameworks to describe the casual linkages in ecosystem state change, hydrogeomorphic features, and landscape patterns of environmental settings limits approaches to simulating ecosystem dynamics.

This talk will evaluate conceptual and simulation models used to link geophysical processes, geomorphic features, and ecological succession in selected regions of Louisiana Coastal Area (LCA). Land-surface dynamics (eg. subsidence and sediment loading) is key to landscape patterns in marsh instability and conversion to open water. Yet soil-plant physiochemical models of disturbance in each system defines resiliency of geomorphic evolution with ecological succession in response to disturbance and restoration forecasts. Such models are critical to add ecosystem dynamics to coastal engineering principles.

A reception will follow the symposium


January 30, 2007
The Earnest and Agnes Gloyna Distinguished Lecture in Environmental Engineering

Constituents of Emerging Concern: An Environmental Threat or an Environmental Policy Opportunity?, Dr. Rhodes Trussell

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