Study Urges New Orleans Relocation Amid Sea Rise Threat

A new study published in Nature Sustainability warns that rising sea levels and coastal erosion will likely surround New Orleans with the Gulf of Mexico before the end of the century, urging city, state and federal leaders to begin planning the managed relocation of its roughly 360,000 residents immediately.

The perspectives paper, authored by researchers including Jesse Keenan of Tulane University, assesses southern Louisiana's vulnerability based on comparisons to a warm period 125,000 years ago. It projects 7 to 23 feet of sea level rise, the loss of three-quarters of remaining coastal wetlands and a shoreline migration of up to 60 miles inland. These changes, driven by global warming, subsidence and intensified hurricanes, position the region as one of the world's most physically vulnerable coastal zones. Even halting emissions today would not prevent the city's encirclement, the authors state, as existing land loss and sinking ground have passed a tipping point.

New Orleans sits in a bowl-shaped basin largely below sea level, with 99 percent of its population at high risk of severe flooding, the worst exposure among U.S. cities, according to a separate recent analysis. "In...