Complexities of Resilience: Adaptation and Change within Human Communities of Coastal Louisiana

Abstract

Coastal ecosystems and particularly deltaic coastal ecosystems are among the most productive in the world, and this certainly is true of coastal Louisiana. Residents have a long history of fishing, hunting, cattle raising, and farming, which means that they have drawn on a diversity of natural resources and engaged in a seasonal round of activities that has limited their vulnerability to loss associated with any one activity. Such resilience among residents of coastal Louisiana increasingly is challenged by a number of factors outside their control such as sea-level rise, increased strength of tropical storms, subsidence, and loss of wetlands due to these and other factors. Local residents have a storehouse of ecological knowledge based on generations of living with storms but are increasingly facing the need to make decisions about strategic retreat from the coast. Strong emotional ties link people to the land and water of coastal Louisiana as well as to their cultural communities. We document how residents of coastal Louisiana are in the process of adapting to changing conditions and identify four different approaches that might be taken by coastal residents in the future.