Conservation and use of coastal wetland forests in Louisiana

Abstract

The natural ecosystems of coastal Louisiana reflect the underlying geomorphic processes responsible for their formation. The majority of Louisiana's wetland forests are found in the lower reaches of the Mississippi the Mississippi River have shaped the Deltaic Plain as natural deltas have been formed and abandoned over the last 5,000 years (Coleman et al. 1998). During the regressive or constructional phase of the delta cycle, the system is dominated by freshwater riverine inputs with the formation of corresponding freshwater marshes and swamps, which then deteriorate during the marine-dominated transgressive phase (Roberts 1997). © 2007 Springer.