Diversity & Disease in post-Katrina New Orleans

Though it is widely held that environmental and societal well-being are intricately linked, little is known about relationships and interactions among ecological and human communities. Urban landscapes that have experienced a catastrophic event (i.e., trauma) can be highly tractable systems for studying potential parallels and feedbacks. With acute trauma resulting in an initial state change, the (re)assembly of proximate or coincident urban ecological and human communities can be a coupled dynamic, where outcomes (e.g., diversity) are contingent on responses to common drivers or interactions arising from management interventions. For better or worse, catastrophic flooding of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina in August 2005 has resulted in a natural laboratory for investigating coupled (re)assembly. This NSF-funded project (CNH program) is being carried out to determine the extent to which ecological and socioeconomic diversity exhibit parallel responses to Katrina-related flooding. Research also is being done to examine how interventions executed as public health measures shape relationships and interactions between ecological and socioeconomic diversity. This involves GIS analyses of landscape heterogeneity and socioeconomic variation before and after Hurricane Katrina, as well as plot-based inventories of post-Katrina plant communities according to flooding and socioeconomic stratification. The ecology and demography of Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus), a habitat-dependent primary reservoir of zoonotic pathogens, is being examined to understand human health outcomes of flooding. This involves a trapping-based census; population genetic analysis of abundance and dispersal; as well as histological analysis of pathogen prevalence. Mail surveys and in-person interviews of households proximate to plant inventory and trapping sites, and of households in four neighborhoods factorial selected according to income and ethnicity, are being conducted to determine how perceptions of risk compare to physical measures of exposure risk across the city. Information gained from these studies will be united into a spatially-explicit predictive model of Norway rat demography to assess ecological and human-health outcomes of alternative control scenarios reflecting habitat suitability, movement, and risk perceptions.

Trauma can have enduring consequences on environments and societies. Understanding the interplay between ecological and human communities will better prepare societies to anticipate and manage trauma inflicted by catastrophic events. All elements of this project- from data collection to education initiatives- will not only help catalyze conceptual unification of disparate fields of research on the composition, assembly, and structure of communities, they will generate discoveries needed to foster and inform societal action at a time when unprecedented resources are being invested to rebuild New Orleans. By involving community partners, cross-university academic and public outreach programs will afford opportunities to promote awareness of trauma, diversity, and public health across stakeholder and underrepresented groups in the city. With urbanization placing an increasingly greater proportion of the global population at risk of experiencing a catastrophic event, and with the traumas experienced by New Orleans continuing to cast a long shadow on contemporary events, it is also expected that the research, training and educational outcomes of this project will resonate with people around the world.

Water sustainability and climate in the Lower Mississippi River Delta

Climate driven sea-level rise and an intensified hydrological cycle are threatening water resources in the New Orleans metropolitan area and surrounding Mississippi River Delta. Variable river discharge and sea level rise can promote cycles of degradation by increasing flooding potential and salinity in regional waterways. Reversing the onset or progression of degradation will involve managing freshwater supply (including reintroduction of freshwater and sediment into wetlands), enabling the sequestration of nutrients that can potentially restore highly valued habitat, and removal of toxins that challenge human and ecosystem health. Science and engineering alone will not be sufficient to implement effective management plans. Well-defined policy and legal frameworks will be essential for progressive management interventions. Similarly, engaging local stakeholders to enhance awareness of concerns about water sustainability will be necessary to ensure ecological and community resiliency under future climate conditions.

The purposes of this NSF-funded (WSC program) incubation project are to develop a strong organizational framework, to enhance existing research capacity and infrastructure, and to obtain critical baseline data that will set the stage for the development of a comprehensive understanding of water quality and management issues in the Mississippi River Delta region. A demonstration project is being carried out to illustrate integrative coastal water management in the study area. This project focuses on management of water quality in an urban-influenced wetland hydrologic system. The research team is also assessing government jurisdiction and property rights related to data on historical and current water and environmental conditions. This work is intended to provide a baseline understanding of water quality issues at the study site. The study also uses focus groups consisting of local stakeholders to collect data on the historical context and perceptions of environmental change and to inform the development of tenable policy solutions. These efforts involve a working group composed of experts and community partners. The goals of the working group are to enhance water resources data management to promote institutional management and community awareness in the proposed study area, and to identify key challenges and priority research areas that are most likely to offer practical solutions for water sustainability in vulnerable coastal environments.