Can We Protect New Orleans?

References Some of our useful resources:

IPET - Interagency Performance Evaluation Taskforce

ASCE - American Society of Civil Engineers

USACE - US Army Corps of Engineers

FEMA - Federal Emergency Management Agency

Google Earth

City of New Orleans

Geographic Information Systems - We used this program to make many of our maps and to analyze data.

A more detailed list of our sources grouped by category:

1. Water Quality

Lane , Robert R., and John W. Day Jr. Water Quality Analysis of a Freshwater Diversion At Caernarvon , Louisiana . Coastal Ecology Institute, Louisiana State University . Baton Rouge, Louisiana , 1998.

Mitsch, William J., John W. Day Jr., J W. Gilliam, Peter M. Goffman, and Donald L. Hey. Reducing Nitrogen Loads, Especially Nitrate- Nitrogen, to Surface Water, Ground Water, and the Gulf of Mexico . National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce. 1999.

Roper, William E. & Wheeler, James F. (2006, May). Water Quality Assessment of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. Retrieved October 10, 2006 from http://www.epa.gov/oilspill/pdfs/RoperW_Katrina Water Quality May 2006.pdf#search="new orleans levees pump locations"

2. Geological Characteristics of Mississippi Delta

"Surface- and Groundwater Hydrology of the Acadian-Pontchartrain NAWQA." US Geological Survey. US Geological Survey. 26 Sept. 2006 <http://la.water.usgs.gov/nawqa/hydrology.htm>.

3. History of Levees in New Orleans and Louisiana

Colten, Craig E. "Conspiracy of the Levees: the Latest Battle of New Orleans." World Watch Magazine Sept.-Oct. 2006: 8-13.

Harrison, Robert W. “Flood Control in the Yazoo-Mississippi Delta.” Southern Economic Journal. 17.2 (1950): 11 pages.

Harrison, Robert W. Levee Districts and Levee Building in Mississippi . The Miss. Delta Council, 1951. 1-253.

Kemper, J. P. Floods in the Valley of the Mississippi. New Orleans , Louisiana : National Flood Commission, ca. 1930. 1-255.

Smith, L. M., & Winkley, B. R. (1996). The response of the lower mississippi river to river engineering. Engineering Geology, 45(1-4), 433-455.

4. Levee Failures

Axtman, Kris. “Search for Weak Link in Big Easy’s Levees”. Christian Science Monitor. 30 December 2005: 16 pars. Online. Available: < http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1230/p03s03-sten.html>. 15 September 2006.

Bergeron, Angelle. "System Failure Gets Blame in New Orleans ." Engineering News- Record 12 June 2006: 10.

Carter, N.(2005, Sept.) New Orleans Levees and Floodwalls: Hurricane Damage Protection. Retrieved September 28, 2006 from http://www.epa.gov/oilspill/pdfs/RoperW_Katrina%20Water%20Quality%20May%202006.pdf#search=%22new%20orleans%20levees%20pump%20locations%22

Marris, Emma. “‘Human Error’ Doomed New Orleans Levees.” Nature 3 November 2005.

" New Orleans Hurricane Protection Projects Data." IPET. June 2006. US Army Corps of Engineers. 10 Oct. 2006 <https://ipet.wes.army.mil/>.

“Preliminary Report on the Performance of the New Orleans Levee Systems in Hurricane Katrina on August 29, 2005.” National Science Foundation: 17 November 2005.

“Q&A: Drilling for Truth in New Orleans : a geologist’s story.” Nature 1 June 2006: 556-557.

Spotts, P. (2005, Nov.) Why The New Orleans Levees Failed. The Christian Science Monitor.

Stromberg, M. (2006, Jan).Little Good News on Levees and Wetlands. Planning. Vol. 72, Iss. 1, 40.

Whittle, Andrew J. "Failure of Levees Due to Hurricane Katrina and Future of Hurricane Protection in New Orleans ." Terrascope. Terrascope Guest Speaker. 16-168, Cambridge . 20 Sept. 2006. 

Wold, A. (2006, May). Report Cites Many Causes of Levee Failure: Turf wars, cost cuts, human error paved a path for disaster. The Advocate, 1.

5. Mississippi River

Brooks , Andrew . Channelized Rivers. Great Britain : John Wiley and Sons, 1998.

Chambers, Julius. The Mississippi River and Its Wonderful Valley. New York , London : G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1910.

Dean, Cornelia. “Time to Move the Mississippi , Experts Say.”New York Times 19 Sept. 2006.  

McPhee, John. The Control of Nature. New York City : Farrar; Straus & Giroux, 1989.

6. Wetlands Destruction and Restoration Coastal 2050 Plan

Boyer, M. E., Harris, J. O., & Turner, R. E. 1997). Constructed crevasses and land gain in the mississippi river delta. Restoration Ecology, 5(1), 85-92.

Butler, Rhett A. "Environmental Problems Worsened Hurricane Katrina's Impact." Mongabay.Com. 31 Aug. 2005. 22 Sept. 2006 <http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0831-new_orleans_wetlands.html>.

McQuaid, John, and Mark Schleifstein. "A Disaster Long in the Making; How Man Distorted the Delicate Dance Between the Delta and the Sea." US News & World Report 4 Sept. 2006: 45-46.

Marris, Emma. “Katrina Boosts Call for Conservation.” Nature 7 September 2005.

"Project Overview." Coast 2050. Louisiana Dept. of Natural Resources. 21 Sept. 2006 <www.coastal2050.gow>.

US Geological Survey. United States . National Wetlands Research Center . USGS. Without Restoration, Coastal Land Loss to Continue. 21 May 2003. 22 Sept. 2006 <http://www.nwrc.usgs.gov/releases/pr03_004.htm>.

7. Case Studies

Enserink, B. (2004). Thinking the unthinkable - the end of the dutch river dike system? exploring a new safety concept for the river management. Journal of Risk Research, 7(7-8), 745-757.

Fletcher, Caroline, and Tom Spencer, eds. Flooding and Environmental Challenges for Venice and Its Lagoon. New York : Cambridge UP, 2005.

Goudas , Constantine, Vincent May, George Katsiaris, and Theophanis Karambas, eds. Soft Shore Protection. Dordrecht, Netherlands : Kluwer Academic, 2003.

Hoeksema, Robert J. Designed for Dry Feet. Reston : ASCE P, 2006.

Hosenball, Mark. "It's Cheaper to Go Dutch; the Netherlands is Expert At Keeping Itself Dry. So Why Aren'T U.S. Bureaucrats Seeking More of Its Help Rebuilding the Levees?" Newsweek 4 Sept. 2006:

McQuaid, John. Sophisticated Flood Defenses as a National Priority for the Dutch. Newhouse News Service. Nov, 20, 2005. http://www.newhousenews.com/archive/mcquaid112105a.html.

Mills, N. (2006). A tale of two hurricanes - galveston and new orleans . Dissent, 53(3), 5-6.

Olshansky, R. B.(2006). Planning after Hurricane Katrina. Journal of the American Planning Association, 72(2), 147-153.

8. Cost

Sawyer, Tom. "Raising Levees is Even More Costly." Engineering News- Record 10 Apr. 2006: 10.

9. Army Corps and Role of Government

Bordeau, Cain. " Louisiana Had Disjointed Storm Protection, 'Was System in Name Only,' Corps Finds." Chicago Defender 2 June 2006.

Brinkley, Douglas. The Great Deluge. New York : Harper Collins Publisher, 2006.

McQuaid, John & Schleifstein, Mark.(2002, June). Evolving danger. The Times-Picayune. J12.

Riley, Don T. “Corps to Rebuild Levees, Public Trust.” ENR 27 March 2006: 47.

Schwartz, John. "Engineers' Panel Urges Study of All Levees in New Orleans ." The New York Times 26 Mar. 2006, Late ed.: 1.18.

Schwartz, John. "Army Builders Accept Blame Over Flooding." The New York Times 2 June 2006, Late ed.: a.1.

Shughart, W. F. (2006). Katrinanomics: The politics and economics of disaster relief. Public Choice, 127(1-2), 31-53.

Teschler, Leland. “Privatize the Army Corps of Engineers.” Machine Design 12 January 2006: 21.

TO BE EQUAL : Independent Inspection of America’s Flood Control System is Necessary to Avert a Repeat of Katrina.

Vartabedian, R. (2006, June). Army Corps Admits Design Flaws in New Orleans Levees. Los Angeles Times, 1.

10. General Levee Construction and Design

American Society Of Civil Engineers. Instrumentation of Embankment Dams and Levees. Reston : American Society of Civil Engineers, 1999.

Apel, H., Thieken, A. H., Merz, B., & Bloschl, G. (2006). A probabilistic modelling system for assessing flood risks. Natural Hazards, 38(1-2), 79-100.

Austin, D. N., & Theisen, M. S.(1996). Three-dimensional woven geotextiles for containment dike construction. Geotextiles and Geomembranes, 14 (5-6), 265-275.

Brierley, G. J., Ferguson , R. J., & Woolfe, K. J. (1997). What is a fluvial levee? Sedimentary Geology, 114(1-4), 1-9. 

Dawson, R., Hall, J., Sayers, P., Bates, P., & Rosu, C. (2005). Sampling-based flood risk analysis for fluvial dike systems. Stochastic Environmental Research and Risk Assessment, 19(6), 388-402.

Escarameia, Manuela. River and Channel Revetments. Reston : ASCE P, 1998.

Fischetti, Mark. "Into the Breach." Scientific American Feb. 2006: 92.

Herbich, John B., ed. Handbook of Coastal Engineering.New York : McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc, 2000.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. (n.d) Levee Construction. Retrieved September 21, from http://www.usace.army.mil/publications/eng-manuals/em1110-2-1913/c-7.pdf.

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. (n.d.). Who We Are. Retrieved September 21, 2006 from http://www.usace.army.mil/who/.

11. Subsidence

Berger, Eric. "Satellite Images Show Parts of the City are Subsiding At 10 Feet a Century." Knight Ridder Tribune Business News 1 July 2006.

12. Levee Boards and Governance

Deslatte, Melinda. “Blanco Outlines Levee Consolidation Plans.”

Eichenseher, Tasha. “GULF RECOVERY: With federal cash at stake, La. lawmakers scurry to consolidate levee boards.” Greenwire 16 February 2006.

H.R.4650 National Levee Safety Program Act of 2006 (Reported in House). July 28, 2006.

Pahl-Wostl, C. (2006). The importance of social learning in restoring the multifunctionality of rivers and floodplains. Ecology and Society, 11(1)

13. Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Information

Goldenberg, S. B., Landsea, C. W., Mestas-Nunez, A. M., & Gray, W. M. (2001). The recent increase in atlantic hurricane activity: Causes and implications. Science, 293(5529), 474-479.

"Google Map of Storm Katrina (2005)." Map. Google Maps. Florida Hurricane Center. 22 Sept. 2006 <http://flhurricane.com/googlemap.php?2005s12>.

Katrina Graphics. Online. Available: http://www.nola.com/katrina/graphics/.

Iman, R. L., Johnson, M. E., & Schroeder, T. A. (2002). Assessing hurricane effects. part 1. sensitivity analysis. Reliability Engineering & System Safety, 78(2), 131-145.

Pielke, R. A., Landsea, C., Mayfield, M., Laver, J., & Pasch, R. (2005). Hurricanes and global warming. Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, 86(11), 1571-1575.

14. Action Plans for New Orleans

Wallace, Robert and Todd. "Action Plan for New Orleans: the New American City." Bring New Orleans Back Commission. Urban Planning Committee. 11 Jan. 2006. 11 Sept. 2006 <http://www.bringneworleansback.org/Portals/BringNewOrleansBack/Resources/Urban%20Planning%20Action%20Plan%20Final%20Report.pdf>.

Danzey, S. & Lambert, P. (October 31, 2006) New Orleans Neighborhoods Rebuilding Plan . Retrieved November 13, 2006 from http://nolanrp.com/neighborhood.php.

15. Flood Protection Solutions

Bourne, Jr., Joel K. "Gone with the Water." National Geographic (2004). 22 Sept. 2006 <http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0410/feature5/>.

Fischetti, Mark. "Protecting New Orleans." Scientific American 2006.

Verworn, H. R. (2002). Advances in urban-drainage management and flood protection. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London Series A-Mathematical Physical and Engineering Sciences, 360(1796), 1451-1460.

Waugh, W. L., & Smith, R. B. (2006). Economic development and reconstruction on the gulf after katrina. Economic Development Quarterly, 20(3), 211-218.