Building Resilience through Collaborative Management of Coastal Protection and Restoration Planning in Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, USA

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a collaborative planning process to develop an integrated coastal restoration plan for Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana that recognizes the knowledge, experience, and priorities of residents and local stakeholders. To achieve this goal, the research team convened a broad group of stakeholders who live and work in Plaquemines Parish, including representatives of the seafood, navigation, and oil and gas industries, as well as residents, landowners, and those who are indigenous to the region, all of whom rely upon the ecosystem services provided by the wetlands, bays, and waterways for sustenance and wellbeing. Using a combination of local knowledge mapping and participatory modeling, the group worked with scientists to develop a restoration plan consisting of a suite of interlinked natural and nature-based solutions. The approach was intentionally interactive and iterative, creating a venue for open dialogue between residents, scientists, and resource users where no one source of knowledge was given primacy over another. Residents were able to contribute information regarding coastal restoration planning within their own communities, and a consensus plan for prioritizing restoration efforts in clusters was submitted for consideration as part of the State of Louisiana’s Coastal Master Plan process. Providing local stakeholders with direct access to scientists allowed their local knowledge to be translated into data products that could be more readily ingested into numerical models and other scientific planning tools.

A community-informed transdisciplinary approach to coastal restoration planning: Maximizing the social and ecological co-benefits of wetland creation in Port Fourchon, Louisiana, USA

“…The transdisciplinary approach developed and operationalized in this study resulted in a suite of wetland restoration project alternatives that are all expected to generate a range of ecological and societal co-benefits. The ECG approach to participatory modeling actively encouraged residents and local stakeholders to work with scientists and other technical knowledge experts to codesign a suite of projects that, by their very nature, support local values and concerns (Hemmerling et al, 2022). This work progressed in an iterative fashion, with the full ECG developing and reviewing each of the final project polygons.…”

Building resilience to extreme weather and climate events in the rural water and wastewater sectors

“…Local knowledge, including Indigenous Knowledge, is often a valuable asset in building resilience to weather and climate extremes (Taylor et al, 2022; Tran et al, 2021). However, projects often fall short in building the necessary trust and reciprocal respect needed for pairing technical and local knowledge in mutually beneficial ways (Hemmerling, Barra, et al, 2022; Hemmerling, DeMyers, et al, 2022; Kumasaka et al, 2022; Ristroph, 2019). Efforts to build equitable partnerships and networks to support resilience are likely to be enhanced through respecting local knowledge and ways of knowing, integrating local values and priorities into strategic design, sharing resources, and respecting time (Kumasaka et al, 2022).…”

Information Needs of Coastal Residents in Louisiana, U.S.A.: Implications for Risk Communication

“…This gap often results in public conflict and distrust toward scientists and government-funded projects (Barra, Hemmerling, and Baustian, 2020; May 2021). The value of community insights in coastal Louisiana has been getting renewed attention from scholars who recognize the importance of incorporating local knowledge and community perspectives into coastal protection and restoration efforts (see examples in Barra, Hemmerling, and Baustian [2020], Hemmerling, DeMyers, and Carruthers [2022], and May [2019]). Much research on community collaboration, however, has been conducted on restoring the coast in southern Louisiana through government-funded projects, and there is currently a lack of collective knowledge on effective communication methods for hazard mitigation information at the household level in the state.…”

“…Specifically, the results echo the concerns regarding bureaucratic inefficiencies, the power of place attachment and rootedness, social connectivity, situational risk perception, and strategies for leveraging community resources in Louisiana that have been documented in studies by Gotham et al . (2018), Hemmerling, DeMyers, and Carruthers (2022), Holley (2022), May (2019), and May (2021). By building on and contributing to this existing body of research, this work has sought to deepen understanding of the challenges and opportunities for hazard mitigation in coastal Louisiana and inform more effective and equitable policy and practice in the region.…”