Innovation to Enhance Community Resilience

The Council supports innovative approaches to promoting ecosystem restoration and community resilience. For example, the Council is funding a large-scale ecosystem restoration project in Louisiana in coordination with a nearby hurricane protection levee. This coordinated approach is facilitating the construction of both projects, which complement each other to help protect infrastructure and improve community resilience in the area. In Louisiana, the practice of enhancing community resilience by combining ecosystem restoration projects with flood protection levees is referred to as a “multiple-lines-of-defense” strategy.

Aerial view of Maurepas Swamp — The Maurepas Swamp Project is a 2,000 cubic feet per second freshwater diversion that will reconnect the Mississippi River to the Maurepas Swamp and revitalize over 45,000 acres of one of Louisiana’s largest and last remaining coastal freshwater swamps. Photo credit: CPRA