Coastal Louisiana is annually threatened by coastal storms. Population grown, wetland loss, and potentially increasing storm frequency are likely to increase coastal vulnerability to these events. Increasingly, coastal management entities are managing land resources to reduce the economic impact of natural disasters with the use of natural infrastructure. This is true in Louisiana where the Louisiana Coastal Master Plan allocates billions of dollars to coastal restoration projects, many of which are intended to mitigate economic damages from tropical storms and hurricanes. Despite this significant proposed investment, the risk reduction value provided by these projects is not well known.
This analysis uses model simulation data and hurricane impact data to estimate the parish-level impacts of hurricanes in coastal parishes from 1997-2008. Using this information, an expected damage function is estimated that describes economic damages as a function of population, relative wetland area, and storm intensity. The model is used to estimate the annual vulnerability of coastal parishes to hurricane damage. Future scenarios of hurricane regime change, wetland loss, and population growth are imposed to estimate the increase in coastal storm vulnerability that can be expected under these scenarios. The model parameters are used to estimate the value of coastal wetlands as natural infrastructure for hurricane risk reduction, and important trends in coastal wetland loss are highlighted in terms of their importance for the future vulnerability of coastal Louisiana.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LSU/oai:etd.lsu.edu:etd-10312016-094002 |
| Date | 15 November 2016 |
| Creators | Boutwell, James Luke |
| Contributors | Caffey, Rex, Westra, John, Fannin, James |
| Publisher | LSU |
| Source Sets | Louisiana State University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-10312016-094002/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached herein a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to LSU or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below and in appropriate University policies, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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