BLENDING REMOTE SENSING AND TRADITIONAL ECOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE TO SUPPORT ECOSYSTEM HEALTH IN COASTAL LOUISIANA

This project is investigating the feasibility and benefit of integrating geospatial technology with traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) of an indigenous Louisiana coastal population to assess the impacts of current and historical ecosystem change to community viability, i.e. considerations of risk. This interdisciplinary project is lead by a staff member/graduate student of the University of New Orleans' Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Sciences (UNO-PIES) with the Center for Hazards Assessment, Response and Technology (CHART) at UNO as co-P.I.

The primary goal is to provide resource managers with an accurate, cost-effective, and comprehensive method of assessing ecological change in the Gulf Coast region that can benefit community sustainability. Using Remote Sensing (RS), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and other geospatial technologies integrated with a coastal community’s TEK to achieve this goal, our objectives are to determine (1) a method for producing a vulnerability/sustainability index for an ecosystem-dependent livelihood base of a coastal population that results from physical information derived from RS imagery and supported by TEK, and (2) to demonstrate how such an approach can engage both affected community residents and others who are interested in healthy marshes to understand better marsh health and ways that marsh health can be recognized, and the cause of declining marsh determined and improved. Other partners include the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) and NASA - Stennis Space Center.

The methodology and fundamental knowledge developed through this study could prove to significantly enhance restoration related planning and decision making throughout the Gulf Coast with valuable information that can only be attained through active community involvement in such efforts. Additionally, the active involvement of local communities in decision-making and practice is a means of securing the legitimacy of broad popular support for coastal restoration efforts. Through the development and use of such a protocol, coastal protection and restoration projects stand a far greater chance of being adopted by the populations they are designed to affect, and thus a greater chance of being successful.