Impacting Factors and Cumulative Impacts by Midcentury on Wetlands in the Louisiana Coastal Area

Abstract Natural and anthropogenic impacting factors simultaneously cause wetland loss in the Louisiana coastal area. Ongoing natural processes are integrated with anthropogenic impacting factors to rationalize the contribution of each impact type within a total system. From baseline conditions of today, two natural processes account for approximately 85% of the estimated cumulative land loss by 2050: (1) subsidence by sediment compaction and tectonism that is driven by the weight of the Mississippi Delta's sedimentary pile and (2) absolute sea-level rise. Hurricanes are sudden natural processes that act as impact accelerators. After the Mississippi River became hydrologically isolated from the delta it built, anthropogenic impacts coinciding with the ramp up to peak oil production in the Louisiana coastal area caused many direct impacts, such as the construction of access canals and pipelines, but indirect impacts are largely symptomatic of natural delta platform submergence. Formation extraction is the ...