Dear Colleagues,
We would like to draw your attention to a 2016 Ocean Sciences Meeting session: "Moving the Mississippi River Delta towards Long-Term Sustainability: Opportunities and Limitations" Link to the session: https://agu.confex.com/agu/fm15/preliminaryview.cgi/Session8166 Abstract submission deadline: 23 September 2015 ***Session details*** Session ID#: 9322 Session Description: The Mississippi River Delta (MRD) region contributes an estimated $45 billion in revenue annually and has a natural capital asset estimated $1.3 trillion. The existence of the economy and associated jobs are being threatened by the rapid coastal land loss. Solutions to the problems are complicated by many challenges including riverine sediment supply, sea level rise, and maintaining navigation safety, flood control, ecological integrity, energy security, and socioeconomic/cultural assets. Despite a large number of research in the past, fundamental questions remain - Do we have sufficient scientific knowledge about the MRD? What else must we know in order to develop a sustainable solution for saving the sinking coast? How can science and policy work together to support the solution? This session aims at bringing together the endeavors of research and practices on the Mississippi River Delta as a complex dynamical system between the natural and human environments. We encourage submissions reporting results from field, modeling, and synthetic studies concerning river hydrology, sediment transport, sedimentation, coastal wetlands, energy infrastructure, population dynamics, real estate development, and policy making in the vulnerable MRD. We especially encourage presentations that stimulate intellectual discussion and critical thinking pertinent to finding an answer to the above questions. Primary Chair: Yi-Jun Xu, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, United States Chairs: Nina Lam1, Brian J. Marks1 and Christopher Swarzenski2, (1)Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, United States; (2)United States Geological Survey, Baton Rouge, LA, United States Index Terms: 4217 Coastal processes [OCEANOGRAPHY: GENERAL] 4558 Sediment transport [OCEANOGRAPHY: PHYSICAL] 4815 Ecosystems, structure, dynamics, and modeling [OCEANOGRAPHY: BIOLOGICAL AND CHEMICAL] 6349 General or miscellaneous [POLICY SCIENCES] Co-Sponsor(s): B - Biogeochemistry and Nutrients EC - Estuarine and Coastal HI - Human Use and Impacts MG - Marine Geology & Sedimentology
