INTEGRATED MANAGEMENT OF THE ATCHAFALAYA BASIN: RESOURCES FOR SCIENTISTS AND POLICYMAKERS

The Atchafalaya River Basin (ARB), Louisiana, U.S.A. is home to a unique American landscape and culture, while also tasked with playing an essential role in the nation’s flood defenses. Following the devastating flood of 1927, the Atchafalaya River (the Mississippi’s largest distributary) became the principal floodway of the Mississippi River & Tributaries Project. It currently receives a mandated 30% of the combined flows of the Mississippi and Red Rivers through the Old River Control Structure. What is today referred to as the nation’s largest river swamp contains the largest continuous area of bottomland hardwood forest in the U.S., along with cypress-tupelo swamps, lakes, marshes and bayous. These productive floodplain wetlands provide numerous ecosystem services, such as flood protection, nutrient/pollutant cycling, fish and wildlife habitat, and natural resource extraction. However, substantial anthropogenic modifications have led to decreased water quality and altered sedimentation patterns. Although the ARB will remain a highly altered system, there is significant interest in preserving the natural features as well. Stakeholders in the ARB can roughly be broken down in to 12 distinct groups based on shared motivations, so management actions benefiting one group may have adverse effects on another. Acknowledging this conflict is essential for moving the decision-making process forward, and understanding the trade-offs associated with actions is essential for making wise management decisions. Therefore, we are developing a project report and companion website designed to facilitate the flow of information among various groups so that adaptive management strategies can be implemented. Based on an extensive review and compilation of published and unpublished scientific studies by researchers working in the ARB over several decades, we estimate and visualize potential trade-offs among ecosystem services under the current flow regime at Old River Control Structure, while considering impacts of an altered flow regime. The project is designed to facilitate communication among various stakeholders, identify data gaps, and provide a data-rich starting point for scientists doing future research in the ARB.