Coastal Desk

Southeast Louisiana is sinking under the waves faster than any coastal landscape in the world. With so much at stake for Louisiana and the nation, New Orleans Public Radio has made coastal news a priority.

Since mid-2014 our Coastal Desk reporting team has been producing frequent news reports and in-depth features covering coastal erosion and restoration; hurricane protection; offshore energy and other coastal businesses; wildlife and fisheries impacts; and coastal communities and culture.

Support for the Coastal Desk comes from the Walton Family Foundation, the Greater New Orleans Foundation, and local listeners.

Army Corps Will Open Bonnet Carre Spillway Friday

By • Apr 2, 2020
Travis Lux / WWNO

The Army Corps of Engineers will open the Bonnet Carre Spillway at 10 a.m. Friday morning to ease pressure on Mississippi River levees in the New Orleans area.

High Mississippi River Halts French Quarter Road Construction

By • Mar 25, 2020
Ashley Dean / WWNO

The full reconstruction of the 800 block of St. Ann Street in the French Quarter has come to a halt, the City of New Orleans announced today.

Two Disasters At Once? Mississippi River Mayors Prepare For Flood Season

By • Mar 19, 2020
CPRA

Mayors up and down the Mississippi River are bracing for the possible need to respond to two disasters at once — the coronavirus outbreak and the spring flood season.

Water Ways: Dutch See Folly Of Past Approach, Seek To Undo Damage Wrought By Ambitious Engineering

By • Mar 13, 2020
Tristan Baurick / Times-Picayune | The Advocate

LAKE MARKEN, The Netherlands — Marker Wadden is a lush, green, man-made archipelago in a big, gray, man-made lake. Its 25,000 square acres are meant to provide a refuge for birds and wildlife that many decades ago disappeared from this shallow body of water when it was turned fresh. Lately, it’s become a refuge for people, too.

Water Ways: The Dutch Are "Rainproofing" Their Big Cities

By • Mar 11, 2020
Chris Granger / Times-Picayune | The Advocate

Climate change is bringing heavier rain and bigger storms — new challenges for old cities.

Amsterdam is only a few feet above sea level and water has always been a part of the culture. There are more than 160 canals wind through the old city.

Water Ways: How Dutch Cities Are Soaking Up Rain And Reducing Flooding

By • Mar 11, 2020
Chris Granger / Times-Picayune | The Advocate

By Tristan Baurick, Times Picayune | The Advocate

ROTTERDAM, The Netherlands -- Eveline Bronsdijk knew she'd done her job when the people of Rotterdam began debating whether pigs should be allowed on rooftops.

In 2012, Bronsdijk, the city’s sustainability adviser, was trying to promote green roofs, thin layers of plants that make buildings cooler, the air cleaner and — most importantly for Rotterdam — gutters and storm drains drier.

Water Ways: Dutch Cities Are Letting The Water In

By • Mar 10, 2020
Chris Granger / Times-Picayune | The Advocate

Last summer the Mississippi River and many of its tributaries flooded for months, causing more than $20 billion dollars in damage. Climate change is bringing more heavy and frequent rainstorms, a threat many flood protection systems were not built for. Rivers creep over levees or burst them. There’s nowhere for the water to go.

The Dutch have long been proud tamers of rivers. They have built huge networks of levees to keep rising waters away from farms and cities. But now officials are trying what seems like an obvious approach: making room for the water.

Water Ways: The Dutch Are Giving Rising Rivers More Room. Should We Follow Suit?

By • Mar 10, 2020
Chris Granger / Times-Picayune | The Advocate

By Tristan Baurick, Times-Picayune | The Advocate

NOORDWAARD, The Netherlands — Vic Gremmer walked through an invisible garden and reached for a doorknob that wasn’t there.

“Here was the opening of the front door,” he said, holding out his hand in a marshy landscape of reeds and willows near a river about 10 miles from Rotterdam. “Here was my home. Over there, the road. But all of it is changed.”

Water Ways: A Culture Of Experimentation Leads To Creative Solutions

By • Mar 9, 2020
Chris Granger / Times-Picayune | The Advocate

The Netherlands is a coastal nation and faces similar threats to Louisiana, like rising seas, stronger storms and a sinking coast. Over the past thousand years, the Dutch have built giant floodwalls and levees to protect them from the North Sea, just like officials continue to do in Louisiana.

But climate change is bringing new threats, and the Dutch are trying some unusual approaches. They are rebuilding land with the power of nature, using some tools that we could use here in Louisiana.

Water Ways: How The Dutch Are Building Coastal Protection For Less — With Nature’s Help

By • Mar 9, 2020
Times-Picayune | The Advocate

By Tristan Baurick, Times Picayune | The Advocate

TER HEIJDE, The Netherlands — With a surfboard strapped to his feet and the reins of a giant kite in his hands, Daan Vijverberg skimmed over whitecaps on the Netherlands’ windy south coast. Nearby, other kiteboarders caught gusts strong enough to fling their wetsuited bodies several feet into the air.

“It’s addictive,” Vijverberg said, emerging from the water with a red face and the sniffles. “I have to come two, three times a week.”

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