NEW ORLEANS – Restoring the Gulf Coast
comes down to questions involving finances, political will and
social sciences, John M. Barry told a conference on natural
resources economics and policy Monday (May 21).
Barry, a prize-winning and New York Times best-selling
author and visiting scholar at the Center for Bioenvironmental
Research of Tulane and Xavier universities, was the keynote
speaker at the National Forum on Socioeconomic Research in Coastal
Systems sponsored by the LSU AgCenter’s Center for Natural
Resource Economics and Policy.
The conference earlier this week (May 20-23)
in New Orleans was "a national forum on socioeconomic research
in coastal systems," said Dr. Rex Caffey, director of the
LSU AgCenter’s CNREP and one of the conference organizers.
The conference drew more than 160 participants
from 16 U.S. states and nine foreign countries to hear and see
more than 80 oral and poster presentations from natural resource
economists, resource managers and policy professionals.
Various sessions looked at the current status
and challenges of integrating the social sciences into coastal
restoration and protection programs, examined the human response
to hurricanes, with particular emphasis on socioeconomic and
risk-related factors, and considered the demand, value and effects
of coastal recreation amenities.
Organizers said the conference was designed
to present information that would help decision-makers addressing
public policy considerations.
Discounting the cost, because the technology
is available, Barry said, coastal restoration is a political
problem and a human problem.
"Once you provide a knowledge base, once
you provide information, it can really affect policy,"
he said. "Knowledge is not morally neutral."
The author of "Rising Tide," a story
of the great Mississippi River flood of 1927, Barry said limited
finances have to be allocated in the public sector to restore
infrastructure and in the private sector to rebuild. He was
asked by the Louisiana congressional delegation to chair a bipartisan
working group on flood control and to advise it on legislation
resulting from hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
In more recent times, the 1965 Flood Control
Act, which emerged after Hurricane Betsy, was a plan that was
never completed, said Ivor Van Heerden, deputy director of the
LSU Hurricane Center.
"If the levees hadn’t failed, we
wouldn’t be talking about Katrina. We need to understand
what went wrong," Van Heerden said, talking about "the
culture of mistakes."
Barrier levees and gates protect the "built
environment," wetlands protect levees, and barrier islands
protect wetlands, Van Heerden said. He warned the Morganza to
the Gulf levee system would produce "five funnels that
would bring a storm surge inland."
Louisiana should practice good comprehensive
planning to avoid repeating past mistakes, said Rod Emmer with
the LSU Sea Grant College Program.
"We must commit to comprehensive planning,"
he said, suggesting local governments use tools such as zoning.
"The time has come for the legislature to stand up and
say, ‘This is what must be done.’ Some people will
win and some people will lose."
Suggesting a new direction for Louisiana in
addressing natural hazards, Emmer said coastal restoration should
affect people and jobs.
Mitigation should exceed federal standards,
he added. For example, all who live inside levees could be required
to buy flood insurance to protect themselves from the consequences
of a levee failure.
Emmer suggested mandatory flood insurance for
anyone living below dams and downstream from diversions, as
well as in storm surge zones above base flood elevations. He
also suggested establishing setback limits on eroding shorelines
for any new developments or rebuilding.
"Individuals must return to more personal
responsibilities," he said.
Among the sociologists presenting at the conference,
Michael Thomas from Florida A&M University presented results
from a four-year study of socioeconomic factors affecting human
response to hurricanes. The study, which evaluated how people
acquire and use information to make choices, surveyed 1,800
people in southeastern and northwestern Florida about their
activities around hurricanes Dennis, Katrina and Wilma in 2005.
Shirley Laska from the University of New Orleans
spoke about results from a survey on the experiences of the
elderly during and after Hurricane Katrina. She said more than
70 percent of the people who died as a result of Hurricane Katrina
and its aftermath were older than 60 years old.
One of the greatest challenges is mobility and
meshing national best practices with local knowledge, she said.
Some of the reasons the elderly didn’t evacuate for Hurricane
Katrina included their experiences with the "false evacuation"
for Hurricane Ivan, their experiences of having survived Hurricane
Betsy, their health, their feelings of being safer at home and
their fears of not being taken care of in shelters.
Conference organizers said the topic –
Challenges of Socioeconomic Research in Coastal Systems –
was particularly important in light of the damage associated
with the 2005 hurricanes.
"The economic importance of natural capital
is widely documented, and nowhere has this been more clearly
demonstrated than in the coastal states of the northern Gulf
of Mexico," Caffey said.
In addition to CNREP, a unit of the LSU AgCenter’s
Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness, sponsors
included the Louisiana Sea Grant College Program; the Coastal
Wetlands Planning, Protection and Restoration Act; the Farm
Foundation; the U.S. Department of Agriculture, National Oceanic
and Atmospheric Administration; and the Shaw Group.
