{"id":305,"date":"2013-03-03T19:05:06","date_gmt":"2013-03-03T23:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/practiceconservation.com\/?p=305"},"modified":"2013-03-03T19:05:06","modified_gmt":"2013-03-03T23:05:06","slug":"a-messy-topic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/practiceconservation.com\/?p=305","title":{"rendered":"A messy topic"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"4885734527\"<\/a>Where I am in Louisiana, when it rains there are standing puddles for a few days- the terrain is pretty flat and a short drive will take me to the coast. Consequently, flooding from extreme weather (such as hurricanes) is always a concern. At the same time this is a very productive environment- we\u2019re currently in the middle of crawfish season (yay!), the farmer\u2019s markets have lots of local produce, and I\u2019m really looking forward to watching flocks of migrant birds pass through on their way north. But how to balance the positives of living here with the dangers?<\/p>\n

One of the things that allowed early settlers to survive hurricanes was that they rarely took a direct hit from a storm\u2019s first landfall- the gulf barrier islands and coastal marshes in south Louisiana absorbed some storm energy and precipitation and thus dampened the ferocity of the onslaught. Unfortunately those islands and marshes are all but gone at this point. While channeling of the Mississippi River has allowed better navigation and reduced flooding of communities along the river itself, by restricting where the water can go, we\u2019ve also restricted the access of coastal marshes and barrier islands to the sediment they need to keep going in the face of wave and storm action, and so we\u2019re losing them piece by piece. This is a problem not only for those of us who live in hurricane-prone areas, but also for the wildlife that uses salt marshes and the surrounding areas, for example breeding brown pelicans.<\/p>\n

I know that there are coastal restoration projects here in Louisiana, but I\u2019m not that familiar with the processes involved and their success rate. I have done some research on remediation for salt marshes after exposure to oil spills, but that focused on specific actions for clean-up and supporting ecosystem communities while they deal with the pollution. So this month I\u2019ll be looking at the different methods for restoring coastal marshes and barrier islands, and the results we have seen so far from these types of projects. This topic could cover a wide range of goals and associated actions, and I\u2019m hopeful that I can find ways to get directly involved in the work.<\/p>\n

For me, the integrity of coastal wetlands is something of an important issue based on where I\u2019m living and what weather I expect to see this summer, but people and wildlife in other areas have just as many pressing reasons to value their coastal wetlands, and I hope that the information I dig up in my search can apply to areas outside of Louisiana.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Where I am in Louisiana, when it rains there are standing puddles for a few days- the terrain is pretty flat and a short drive will take me to the coast. Consequently, flooding from extreme weather (such as hurricanes) is always a concern. At the same time this is a very productive environment- we\u2019re currently […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[21,39],"tags":[75,20,74,73],"class_list":["post-305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-marine-ecosystems","category-plant-communities","tag-barrier-islands","tag-conservation","tag-restoration-projects","tag-salt-marsh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/practiceconservation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/practiceconservation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/practiceconservation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/practiceconservation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/practiceconservation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=305"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/practiceconservation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":308,"href":"https:\/\/practiceconservation.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305\/revisions\/308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/practiceconservation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/practiceconservation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/practiceconservation.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}