BE 4240 Final Project

1. Determining
Restoration Success in
Louisiana
BE 4240
Sophia Della Rocca
Lauren Todd
Andrew Lin
Will Hynes
Colin Richter
1

2. Introduction
● Louisiana has lost over 1,800 square miles of land
● More and more land will be lossed in the future
● Loss of land= loss of shore lines= domino effect
● We focused on the Isles Dernières Barrier Island Wildlife
Refuge
2

3. Rationale
● The Islands in Terrebonne Bay are
extremely important
● The problem: Ecological and Economic
impacts
● Objectives
● Possible solutions
3

4. Approach
Restoration for Raccoon and Whiskey Islands
● Marsh elevation was built higher than recommended to
slow erosion on Raccoon Island
● More ecologically complex design that incorporated tidal
inflows with canals to encourage natural hydrologic
ecology on Whiskey Island
4

5. Approach
● Comparison of 2 salt marsh restoration sites
on 2 Louisiana Barrier Islands
○ Whiskey and Raccoon Islands
● 3 year study to evaluate success of
restoration
○ Success was defined as the sites ability to
support ecological processes
5

6. Methods
● Sand was excavated from
nearby sand bars to
increase elevation of the
islands
Dredging
● Isles Dernieres Barrier
Wildlife Refuge in
Terrebonne Bay, Louisiana
Study Site
● 129 ha on Whiskey
(0.8m) and 24 ha
on Raccoon (1.1 m)
Restoration
6

7. Methods ● Used to Evaluate species
presence with recording units
that were mounted on the
Islands
Acoustic Monitoring
Habitat Monitoring
● 1 meter squared plot was
analyzed on each Island over
the three year period and the
% ground cover per plant
species was determined
7

8. ● Implementation
● Management
● Research
Costs
8

9. Funding
● National Coastal Wetlands
Conservation
● National Coastal Resilience Fund
● EPA through Clean Water Act
● Educating the public
9

10. Relevant Design Equations: Erosion
● Sediment Transport Equations and
Shields Diagram
○ Dimensionless Shear Stress
○ Actual Shear Stress
○ Shear Velocity Reynolds Number
○ Experimental Curve Value
If the actual shear stress is larger than the
dimensionless shear stress, sediment
transport can be expected.
10

11. Results and
Discussion
Figure 1: Comparison of treatment
types on Whiskey and Raccoon
islands in the Isles Dernieres Wildlife
Refuge, Terrebonne Bay, Louisiana,
2016–2018. A) Reference site,
Whiskey; B) Restoration site,
Whiskey; C) Reference site,
Raccoon; D) Restoration site,
Raccoon.
11

12. Table 1: Comparison of mean species richness and standard deviation for
acoustic monitoring via ARUs and point counts for each treatment type
(restoration [Res], reference [Ref], and mean [Av]) for Whiskey and Raccoon
islands
12

13. Table 2: Results from generalized linear models to evaluate effects of
habitat covariates on avian species richness derived from the passive
acoustic sampling of breeding birds in resorted and reference habitats on
Whiskey Island
13

14. Table 3: Results from generalized linear models to evaluate effects of
habitat covariates on avian species richness derived from point counts
of breeding birds in restored and reference habitats on both Whiskey
and Racoon Islands
14

15. Table 4: Results from intercept-only and highest ranked occupancy models
to evaluate effect of habitat covariates on the Ammospiza maritima and
Ixobrychus exilis occupancy on restoration and reference sites on Whiskey
Island from 2016-2018
15

16. Conclusion
● Restoration was successful
● Ideas to combat coastline erosion
○ Sand dunes
○ Pulsating waves
○ Vegetation control
● Sand dunes
○ Acts as a buffer to the coastline
● Pulsating Waves
○ Keeps the amount of erosion to a minimal
● Vegetation control
○ Longer roots tend to anchor the coastline better
16

17. Conclusion
● Principle of ecology;
○ Limit number of factors
○ All components are interconnected
● Limit number of factors
○ Only touch a limited amount of variables each time
● All components are interconnected
○ Everything in nature affects one another
17

18. Conclusion
● Self design
○ Team cannot keep up with all the variable
change affects
○ Naturally occurring
○ Helps maintain the balance in nature
○ Change one variable = nature integrates it and
maintain homeostasis
18

19. References
Barnes, Stephen, et al. "Economic evaluation of coastal land loss in Louisiana." (2015).
Barnes, S. R., and Stephanie Virgets. "Regional impacts of coastal land loss and Louisiana’s
opportunity for growth." LSU EJ Ourso College of Business Economics and Policy Research Group,
Environmental Defense Fund (2017).
Barbier, Edward B., et al. "The value of estuarine and coastal ecosystem services." Ecological
monographs 81.2 (2011): 169-193.
Byerly, Paige A., et al. "Effects of barrier island salt marsh restoration on marsh bird occurrence in
the northern Gulf of Mexico." Restoration Ecology 28.6 (2020): 1610-1620.
Cretini, Kari F., et al. "Development and use of a floristic quality index for coastal Louisiana
marshes." Environmental monitoring and assessment 184.4 (2012): 2389-2403.
Deegan, L. A., H. M. Kennedy, and R. Costanza. "Factors contributing to marsh land loss in
Louisiana's coastal zone." Developments in Environmental Modelling. Vol. 5. Elsevier, 1983. 915-
919.
Duarte, Carlos M., et al. "The role of coastal plant communities for climate change mitigation and
adaptation." Nature Climate Change 3.11 (2013): 961-968. 19

20. References
Khalil, Syed M., et al. "Overview of coastal restoration in Louisiana." Shore & Beach 79.3 (2011): 4-
11.
Liu, Haoran, Kehui Xu, and Carol Wilson. "Sediment infilling and geomorphological change of a
mud-capped Raccoon Island dredge pit near Ship Shoal of Louisiana shelf." Estuarine, Coastal and
Shelf Science 245 (2020): 106979.89-2403.
Prabhakaran, Sudesh, Vikneswaran Nair, and Sridar Ramachandran. "Community participation in
mitigating marine waste to reduce climatic change in tourism destinations." Worldwide Hospitality
and Tourism Themes (2016).
Temmink, Ralph JM, et al. "Mimicry of emergent traits amplifies coastal restoration success."
Nature communications 11.1 (2020): 1-9.
Turner, R. Eugene, and Yu Mo. "Salt Marsh Elevation Limit Determined after Subsidence from
Hydrologic Change and Hydrocarbon Extraction." Remote Sensing 13.1 (2021): 49.
Sparks, Eric L., et al. "Cost-effectiveness of two small-scale salt marsh restoration designs."
Ecological Engineering 53 (2013): 250-256.
Wang, Faming, et al. "Plant biomass and rates of carbon dioxide uptake are enhanced by successful
restoration of tidal connectivity in salt marshes." Science of the Total Environment 750 (2021): 20

21. QUESTIONS?
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