Combination Of Rising Sea Levels And Subsiding Land Endanger Louisiana Coast

ST. BERNARD PARISH, LA - AUGUST 22: Dead oak tree stand in marshland on August 22, 2019 in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana. Many oak trees and cypress trees throughout Louisiana's coastal marshes have died due to a combination of the saltwater intrusion and subsidence. According to researchers at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Louisiana's combination of rising waters and sinking land give it one of the highest rates of relative sea level rise on the planet. Since the 1930s, Louisiana has lost over 2,000 square miles of land and wetlands, an area roughly the size of Delaware. In the past 30 years, as subsidence continues and the effects of climate change increase, Louisiana has been losing its costal landscape at the rate of almost a football field’s worth of land every hour. (Footage by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)