Jacqueline Richard
Nunez Community College, LA·Earth & Environmental Science
Louisiana's coastal wetlands were built from mud carried down the Mississippi River, but since the 1930s nearly 2,000 square miles of them have turned into open water, erasing some communities and exposing others to storms and flooding. One proven and inexpensive way to rebuild land is a crevasse: a cut in the river levee that lets water and sediment spill into the surrounding wetlands and deposit new mud.
- Fields
Earth & Environmental Science
Engineering
Education Research
- Topics
coastal resilience
wetland loss
Mississippi River Delta
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2027
What they work on
- Characterize water and sediment pathways through crevasses on the lower Mississippi River, including how individual crevasses interact with the main channel and with each other.
- Build a conceptual framework grounded in geomorphology and in management practice that explains how human activities have shaped crevasse performance and which practices are most effective.
- Develop tools and techniques for targeting water and sediment delivery across the crevasse network while balancing wetland rebuilding against navigation, salinity intrusion and drinking water needs.
- Create a workforce development program with local universities and technical colleges that trains practitioners to design and monitor crevasses and to weigh environmental and economic interests.
More about the research
River managers have historically closed crevasses, because the cuts can interfere with the river as a shipping channel and, when the river runs low, let salty water intrude and threaten drinking water supplies. Crevasses are nonetheless expected to become more common in the decades ahead, particularly where riverbanks are less heavily armored, and the United States has no formal framework for managing them.
Why it matters
Coastal Louisiana communities are losing the wetlands that buffer them from storms and flooding. Tools for managing crevasses as a network could help agencies rebuild wetlands with river sediment while protecting navigation and drinking water supplies, and the United States currently lacks any formal framework for doing so. The training program would supply local practitioners able to design and monitor these projects and sustain long-term coastal planning.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Marin Clark
University of Michigan, MI·Earth & Environmental Science
Develop a scientific framework that characterizes cascading land surface hazards, such as landslides that dam rivers and sediment buildup that promotes flooding, and anticipates how they will change.
Mona Behl
William & Mary, VA·Social Science
Foster analysis and synthesis research on human mobility caused by coastal change, including displacement, migration and planned relocation, using existing datasets and legal and policy frameworks.
Kory Konsoer
Louisiana State University, LA·Earth & Environmental Science
Test whether the initial junction angle of a river meander cutoff controls how fast sediment plugs its entrance and whether an oxbow lake forms, using recent cutoffs on the West Fork White River, Indiana.
The school
Nunez Community College: 1 labs on PI Pages.
Reach out
A start for your email. Fill in the brackets.