Brady Couvillion

Few landscape scale models have assessed the effects of coastal protection and restoration projects on wetland morphology while taking into account important uncertainties in environmental factors such as sea-level rise (SLR) and subsidence. In support of Louisiana's 2012 Coastal Master Plan, we developed a spatially explicit wetland morphology model and coupled it with other predictive...

We applied a spectroscopic analysis to Airborne Visible/InfraRed Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) data collected from low and medium altitudes during and after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill to delineate the distribution of oil-damaged canopies in the marshes of Barataria Bay, Louisiana. Spectral feature analysis compared the AVIRIS data to reference spectra of oiled marsh by using...

Coastal Louisiana wetlands contain about 37% of the estuarine herbaceous marshes in the conterminous United States. The long-term stability of coastal wetlands is often a function of a wetland's ability to maintain elevation equilibrium with mean sea level through processes such as primary production and sediment accretion. However, Louisiana has sustained more coastal wetland loss than...

Forecasting marsh collapse in coastal Louisiana as a result of changes in sea-level rise, subsidence, and accretion deficits necessitates an understanding of thresholds beyond which inundation stress impedes marsh survival. The variability in thresholds at which different marsh types cease to occur (i.e., marsh collapse) is not well understood. We utilized remotely sensed imagery, field...

Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) derived from MODerate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite imagery and land/water assessments from Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) imagery were used to quantify the extent and severity of damage and subsequent recovery after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita of 2005 within the vegetation communities of Louisiana's coastal wetlands...

Remote sensing imagery can be an invaluable resource to quantify land change in coastal wetlands. Obtaining an accurate measure of land change can, however, be complicated by differences in fluvial and tidal inundation experienced when the imagery is captured. This study classified Landsat imagery from two wetland areas in coastal Louisiana from 1983 to 2010 into categories of land and...

This report describes shoreline surveys conducted in the marshes of Louisiana in areas impacted by oil spilled from the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico. Three field expeditions were conducted on July 7-10, August 12-14, and August 24-26, 2010, in central Barataria Bay and the Bird's Foot area at the terminus of the Mississippi River delta. This...

The development of ecosystem management plans to restore and rehabilitate natural resources requires an understanding of how specific ecological mechanisms regulate the structure and function of ecosystems. To achieve restoration goals, comprehensive plans and engineering designs must effectively change environmental drivers at the regionallevel to reduce stress conditions at the local...

The southern portion of the Atchafalaya Basin Floodway System (ABFS) is a large area (2,571 km2) in south central Louisiana bounded on the east and west sides by a levee system. The ABFS is a sparsely populated area that includes some of the Nation's most significant extents of bottomland hardwoods, swamps, bayous, and backwater lakes, holding a rich abundance and diversity of...

The flooding that ensued in the Greater New Orleans area after Hurricane Katrina left thousands of victims trapped and in need of emergency rescue. This paper describes the processing of raw 911-call data into search and rescue products used by emergency responders after the storm.

Floodplain forests are an important habitat for Neotropical migratory birds. Hurricane Katrina passed through the Pearl River flood plain shortly after making landfall. Field measurements on historical plots and remotely sensed data were used to assess the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the structure of floodplain forests of the Pearl River.

It was the midst of songbird migration season when Hurricane Katrina hit the Louisiana coast in 2005. Typically these birds fatten up in Gulf Coast river bottomland forest for the long flight to Central and South America. After Katrina stripped plants of leaves, fruits, and insects in the fertile bottomlands of the Pearl River, weather radar indicated that migrant birds increased their...