A team of scientists led by a Tulane geologist is urging Louisiana to begin planning now for how to relocate entire communities away from the coast, warning that sea levels may eventually rise high enough to overtake New Orleans.
The paper, published Monday in the journal Nature Sustainability with Tulane coastal geologist Torbjörn Törnqvist as lead author, gives a concrete picture of what southeast Louisiana could look like in the coming centuries as sea levels rise. The team identified, for the first time, an ancient shoreline about 30 miles north of New Orleans that marks where the Gulf of Mexico once reached.
That finding underpins an argument the paper makes, one its authors acknowledge won’t be popular: that the state should begin planning now for a gradual, multi-generational relocation of coastal residents to higher ground. New Orleans, the paper argues, will eventually become “physically impossible” to defend with floodwalls and levees…