The Giving Delta

The Giving Delta project provides a vision for reengaging the Mississippi River's seasonal flood pulse to build and maintain coastal wetlands within a management framework that allows for human adaptation to estuarine transgression over time. This project conceptually modeled three layered frameworks: Ecosystem, Community, and Economy. The Giving Delta framework plan lays out a vision for restoring the environment and reintroducing the natural river dynamics into parts of Louisiana's coast. Over the course of various generations, residents and businesses adapted to the negligible risk of riverine flooding introduced by the levee system up and down the Mississippi River. During the first generation, the controlled flood and multi-height spillway structures will be constructed, as well as the settling basins and sediment traps. Uninterrupted deep draft navigation cannot be guaranteed through the Southwest Pass and an alternative deep draft navigation channel entrance into the Mississippi River and the inland waterways of the nation is constructed at Port Sulphur during the second generation.