[MarignyBywater] Unconventional Thinking Needed in New Orleans, Tulane Professors Say

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		Unconventional Thinking Needed in New Orleans, Tulane Professors Say		December 2, 2008		
Mike Strecker
							Phone: 504-865-5210
						
			mstreck at tulane.edu		
CallingNew Orleans "the canary in the global warming coal mine", two TulaneUniversity professors say the Crescent City must embrace unconventionalthinking in order to recover in a sustainable way from HurricaneKatrina while withstanding a continual threat from rising sea levels,diminishing wetlands and future storms. They stress that the number onepriority for Louisiana should be to combat global warming andaccelerated sea-level rise.         
In the commentary "Sustaining costal urban ecosystems" published inthe latest issue of the London-based journal Nature Geoscience,Torbjörn E. Törnqvist, associate professor in Tulane's Department ofEarth and Environmental Sciences and Douglas J. Meffert, deputydirector of the Tulane/Xavier Center for Bioenvironmental Research,also say New Orleans must concentrate more of its population on the 50percent of its land mass that lies above sea level.    
"New Orleans could accommodate more than 300,000 residents above sealevel, which by U.S. Census Bureau estimates is approximately thecurrent population of the entire city," the authors write, citing arecent demographic study by colleague Richard Campanella, assistantresearch professor in Tulane's Department of Earth and EnvironmentalSciences. "The population density in New Orleans immediately before theexodus caused by Hurricane Katrina was only about 2,500 residents persquare kilometer. By comparison, the present-day population density inAmsterdam, The Netherlands, a city in a broadly similar environmentalsetting, is almost 4,500 residents per square kilometer."
Törnqvist and Meffert also point out that much of the city's abovesea level land remains vacant and undeveloped while urban sprawlcontinues in areas known to flood. Urban sprawl in flood-prone areasshould be banned, they say, in New Orleans as well as in vulnerableareas nationwide such as St. Louis, MO. On the other hand rebuildingefforts in floodplains should be restricted to raised, storm-resistantstructures like those featured in Brad Pitt's "Make it Right"project.        
The professors also contend that efforts at wetlands restoration arecurrently "miniscule" and need to be ramped up, along with a betterunderstanding of the role rising sea levels play in exacerbating thedevastation brought on by hurricanes.  
New Orleans offers an unprecedented opportunity to find moreeffective ways to make urban coastal areas safer around the world,Törnqvist and Meffert say. 
"A concerted effort to restore and transform a coastal urban centerwhose functioning is inextricably tied to its surrounding naturalecosystem can only lead to new knowledge and understanding that willprove critical once comparable conditions confront Shanghai, Tokyo andNew York City," the authors write.     Nature Geoscience is a monthly,multi-disciplinary journal aimed at bringing together top-qualityresearch across the spectrum of the earth sciences along with relevantwork in related areas.                  



				
        Citation information:        Page accessed: Wednesday, December 03, 2008
             Page URL: http://tulane.edu/news/releases/pr_120208.cfm        


Tulane University, New Orleans, LA 70118 504-865-5000 website at tulane.edu
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