Louisiana's coast is a complex and dynamic environment that has been intensively studied for decades. After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, Louisiana developed a Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast (Integrated Ecosystem Restoration and Hurricane Protection: Louisiana's Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast, 2007) which is the first plan to completely integrate hurricane protection with the effort to maintain and rebuild Louisiana's rapidly eroding coast. It is the guide for all coastal restoration and hurricane protection efforts in Louisiana over the next several decades. Plans for the future of the coast continue to evolve under this vision from project-specific to coastwide scales. These efforts are being undertaken by a wide-array of entities, including federal, state and local governments, non-governmental organizations, academia, private industry and others. The future of the coast - ecosystem, economy and culture - depends on effective coordination and implementation of these plans.
The key to our success will be the utilization of the best available science and engineering during the implementation of restoration and protection plans.
In order to achieve this task, planning efforts now have to incorporate research from all areas of expertise along the coast to fully understand cause-effect relationships and evaluate trade-offs of any proposed action, all the while being able to move forward with the urgency needed and to adaptively manage for uncertainties.
The State of the Coast (SOC) conference's mission is to provide a forum to learn from recent advances in science and engineering as they relate to hurricane protection and ecosystem restoration in coastal Louisiana, to ensure that relevant and current knowledge is applied to existing and future coastal restoration and protection efforts, and to effectively inform policy and decision making.
