Strengthening Coastal Planning

How Coastal Regions Could Benefit from Louisiana's Planning and Analysis Framework

by 

David G. Groves, 

Jordan R. Fischbach, 

Debra Knopman, 

David R. Johnson, 

Kate Giglio

Abstract

Key Findings

Recommendations

Like many coastal regions, Louisiana faces significant risks from storms and resulting storm surge and flooding, as well as coastal land loss. Furthermore, these risks are likely to be exacerbated by continued population growth, economic development, and climate change. In recent years the need to address these challenges has grown more compelling as a consequence of the experiences with hurricanes Katrina, Rita, Isaac, and Sandy.

Louisiana's Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) took a major step forward to confront these challenges in its groundbreaking 2012 report, Louisiana's Comprehensive Master Plan for a Sustainable Coast, a 50-year, $50 billion coast-wide strategy for reducing flood risk and coastal land loss. RAND researchers supported CPRA's efforts by developing (1) a structured and analytical approach to support CPRA's decisionmaking, called the Planning Tool, and (2) a computer simulation model of coastal conditions to estimate property and other damage associated with storm surge and flooding, called the Coastal Louisiana Risk Assessment (CLARA) model.

This report highlights RAND's contributions to CPRA's Master Plan, with the goal of helping policymakers in other coastal regions understand the value of a solid technical foundation to support decisionmaking on strategies to reduce flood risks, rebuild or restore coastal environments, and increase the resilience of developed coastal regions. It brings together and makes accessible previously published RAND technical descriptions of both the Planning Tool and the CLARA model.