University of New Orleans earth and environmental sciences professor Mark Kulp has received a 2-year $814,000 grant from the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority to conduct sediment sampling along the Louisiana coast. The research is in support of the Louisiana Barrier Island Comprehensive Monitoring program.

Researchers from UNO’s Pontchartrain Institute for Environmental Sciences and graduate and undergraduate students in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences will conduct a detailed analysis of sediment samples from sand-rich sections of the Louisiana coast. The characteristics of the collected samples will be compared to other samples collected by UNO researchers during the last 20 years.

“These comparisons will allow us to develop an understanding of changes in the distribution of sediments along the coast in response to coastal sediment re-nourishment projects and natural sediment transport processes, such as tropical cyclones,” Kulp said. “The information generated by this project is of fundamental importance to developing future coastal re-nourishment projects.”

The Louisiana Barrier Island Comprehensive Monitoring program was established to provide long-term data on Louisiana’s barrier island systems for planning design, evaluation and maintenance of barrier island restoration projects. This is the third iteration of the monitoring program. Data was collected for the first interval from 2005-2010 and the second interval from 2015-2019. Given the amount of tropical storm activity in the northern Gulf of Mexico in 2020 and 2021, researchers believe now is the appropriate time to gather new data on post-storm changes to the Louisiana coast, according to Kulp.  

The Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority is responsible for operating projects that restore, create, enhance and maintain coastal wetlands in the state.