This project studies the resilience of the built environment in coastal communities that are subject to chronic wind and water damage from hurricanes. It is partly a case study of the impacts of the Katrina hurricane on New Orleans and the Mississippi Coast and the national and regional pattern of displacement of residents and their assimilation into other places. It asks whose communities were most affected, which will be rebuilt and how they will be different from before, and which segments of the population will be permanently displaced.
This Katrina case study will be embedded within a larger project on the relationship between hurricane damage, natural environment, and the built environment. It will assess the cumulative storm risk on the Gulf Coast during the last fifty years, and ask how the natural environment (forest cover) and the built environment (residential land use) have been affected by these events. Historical data on storms and remote sensing information on forest cover will be analyzed together with fine-grained census data at ten-year intervals for 1950-2000. A scientific understanding of the effects of Katrina and other storms will be valuable for public policymaking, both in the short term (investments in the region over the next several years) and in the long term (planning for the security of coastal zones). The project will provide a map of vulnerability to storm risks for the Gulf Coast, and results will be widely disseminated to the public and environmental organizations.
