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> The first two comments seem to associate anthropogenic climate change with the changes in Louisiana's coastline. A more likely culprit is hydrologic mismanage

> The first two comments seem to associate anthropogenic climate change with the changes in Louisiana's coastline. A more likely culprit is hydrologic mismanagement. What is that based on?

ska 9y ago
for an overview see, e.g. http://www.mississippiriverdelta.org/files/2011/11/map-100-years-of-mismanagement.pdf http://www.mississippiriverdelta.org/files/2011/11/map-100-y... There is a pretty wide literature on this also.
adolph 9y ago
Well, I wrote mismanagement this morning and have spent more time reconsidering the topic since. I'd guess that if people knew then what they know now, they'd do things differently or not do them. Using the word mismanagement is an unfair criticism. If the coastline changes were significantly caused by climate change/rising sea levels then the other Gulf coast states would have problems too. The link between the control humans have exerted on Louisiana rivers, additional artificial waterways and loss of coastline is fairly well established. If you'd like more information, the below medium work seems a reasonable introduction--I scanned over it and it seems to have the main points, some nice maps, doesn't avoid the problem of sea level changes, and has some human interest stuff: https://medium.com/matter/louisiana-loses-its-boot-b55b3bd52d1e https://medium.com/matter/louisiana-loses-its-boot-b55b3bd52...
- hackuser 9y ago
  > I'd guess that if people knew then what they know now, they'd do things differently or not do them. How I wish that were true. Many problems of humanity are very predictable - climate change is an easy one, but probably we can all think of some problems in the tech industry - and yet people do it anyway. If it were true, we wouldn't fight any wars. > If the coastline changes were significantly caused by climate change/rising sea levels then the other Gulf coast states would have problems too. That's not how it works. There is a lot of coastline in the world and the effect of climate change varies greatly. Look at just the East Coast of the U.S.: Miami is facing big problems; New Jersey is seeing some problems; New York is not (yet). Holland, with its low-lying reclaimed land, is likely to face problems long before the cliffs of Dover.

> The first two comments seem to associate anthropogenic climate change with the changes in Louisiana's coastline. A more likely culprit is hydrologic mismanagement. What is that based on?

ska 9y ago

for an overview see, e.g. http://www.mississippiriverdelta.org/files/2011/11/map-100-years-of-mismanagement.pdf http://www.mississippiriverdelta.org/files/2011/11/map-100-y... There is a pretty wide literature on this also.

adolph 9y ago

Well, I wrote mismanagement this morning and have spent more time reconsidering the topic since. I'd guess that if people knew then what they know now, they'd do things differently or not do them. Using the word mismanagement is an unfair criticism. If the coastline changes were significantly caused by climate change/rising sea levels then the other Gulf coast states would have problems too. The link between the control humans have exerted on Louisiana rivers, additional artificial waterways and loss of coastline is fairly well established. If you'd like more information, the below medium work seems a reasonable introduction--I scanned over it and it seems to have the main points, some nice maps, doesn't avoid the problem of sea level changes, and has some human interest stuff: https://medium.com/matter/louisiana-loses-its-boot-b55b3bd52d1e https://medium.com/matter/louisiana-loses-its-boot-b55b3bd52...

hackuser 9y ago
> I'd guess that if people knew then what they know now, they'd do things differently or not do them. How I wish that were true. Many problems of humanity are very predictable - climate change is an easy one, but probably we can all think of some problems in the tech industry - and yet people do it anyway. If it were true, we wouldn't fight any wars. > If the coastline changes were significantly caused by climate change/rising sea levels then the other Gulf coast states would have problems too. That's not how it works. There is a lot of coastline in the world and the effect of climate change varies greatly. Look at just the East Coast of the U.S.: Miami is facing big problems; New Jersey is seeing some problems; New York is not (yet). Holland, with its low-lying reclaimed land, is likely to face problems long before the cliffs of Dover.