The Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) has recently launched a new "Flood Risk and Resilience Viewer" which displays information on coastal land change, flood risk, and impacts to communities. This innovative online-tool provides residents with access to the state's best information about how Louisiana's coast may change in the future, as well as resources to make communities and properties safer. Basically, it is an interactive State Master Plan!

The viewer uses data that was produced for the 2012 Coastal Master Plan and shows land loss and flood risk across the coast for the current day as well as 50 years into the future. Also displayed are the 2012 Coastal Master Plan protection and restoration projects that provide land building and risk reduction benefits across the coast. This information can be used by state agencies, coastal stakeholders, and community advocates in coastal planning and hazard mitigation efforts. In addition, a variety of resources are provided to enable homeowners and business owners to take steps towards reducing their flood risk.

To learn more and explore the viewer, click here.

ROR joined our NGO partners from the National Wildlife Federation, Environmental Defense Fund, Audubon, and others for a five-year oil spill anniversary field trip for press, which included nine boats, NGO experts and media from across the state region and country.  

Press included outlets from National Geographic, Associated Press, Al Jazeera America, Al Jazeera English, Houston Chronicle, Times Picayune, The Baton Rouge Advocate, Nola TV stations WWL & WVUE, radio station WWNO, Baton Rouge NBC affiliate, Houma Courier & Channel One.  ROR was featured in stories on Fox 8 and later in a story with the International Business Times.  The goal was to give access to the places affected the most by the 2012 disaster.

The group first stopped on Grand Terre, where a 25,000 lb tar mat was recently discovered.  The group then headed to Cat Island, an iconic image from the oil spill, which on that day was only the home to a lone pair of nesting birds. The group then visited the Lake Hermitage Marsh Creation project, a post-spill project that re-created wetlands and reduces tidal exchange in surrounding marshes by using material dredged from the Mississippi River.