Brief Communications
Nature 441, 587-588 (1 June 2006) | doi:10.1038/441587a; Published online 31 May 2006
Space geodesy: Subsidence and flooding in New Orleans
Timothy H. Dixon1, Falk Amelung1, Alessandro Ferretti2, Fabrizio Novali2, Fabio Rocca3, Roy Dokka4, Giovanni Sella5, Sang-Wan Kim1, Shimon Wdowinski1 & Dean Whitman6
It has long been recognized that New Orleans is subsiding and is therefore susceptible to catastrophic flooding. Here we present a new subsidence map for the city, generated from space-based synthetic-aperture radar measurements, which reveals that parts of New Orleans underwent rapid subsidence in the three years before Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005. One such area is next to the Mississippi River–Gulf Outlet (MRGO) canal, where levees failed during the peak storm surge: the map indicates that this weakness could be explained by subsidence of a metre or more since their construction.
- Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, University of Miami, Miami, Florida 33149, USA
- Tele-Rilevamento Europa, 20149 Milan, Italy
- Dipartimento di Elettronica e Informazione, Politecnico di Milano, 20133 Milan, Italy
- Center for GeoInformatics, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 70803, USA
- National Geodetic Survey, Silver Spring, Maryland 20910-3282, USA
- Department of Earth Sciences, Florida International University, Miami, Florida 33199, USA
Correspondence to: Timothy H. Dixon1 Email: tdixon@rsmas.miami.edu
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RESEARCH
Extensive damage to coastal Louisiana from Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was largely attributed to high rates of relative sea-level rise caused by coastal subsidence. An examination of the underlying Holocene sediments shows that the compaction of peat-rich deposits contributes significantly to Mississippi Delta subsidence rates of up to 5mm per year. Extensive damage to coastal Louisiana from Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was largely attributed to high rates of relative sea-level rise caused by coastal subsidence. An examination of the underlying Holocene sediments shows that the compaction of peat-rich deposits contributes significantly to Mississippi Delta subsidence rates of up to 5mm per year.Nature Geoscience Letter (01 Mar 2008)
Supplementary InformationNature Geoscience Letter (01 Jul 2009)
