2023 Coastal Master Plan
Louisiana’s coast is changing, as it has for centuries. But today, the pace of change is far exceeding how quickly residents and ecologies can adapt. The 2023 Coastal Master Plan is a living document that guides and summarizes the state’s coastwide investments in risk reduction and coastal restoration projects.
After Hurricane Katrina, the Louisiana Legislature created the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) to coordinate local restoration efforts. Since 2007, the CPRA has developed a series of Coastal Master Plans to help evaluate and plan the wide variety of projects across the coast to prepare for and respond to a climate-changed future. In this critical landscape, the 2023 Coastal Master Plan was developed, in collaboration with SCAPE, to help the region prepare and respond to rising sea levels, sinking land, and stronger storms.
CPRA harnesses the combined expertise of scientists, engineers, policymakers, and citizens to help guide investments in restoration and risk reduction projects. SCAPE came onboard to develop the overarching visual communication strategy and graphic identity for the Coastal Master Plan. During this three-year partnership, SCAPE enhanced the plan’s visual accessibility and comprehension, and wove local identity into the overall narrative.
A major shift in the plan was reframing the communication of a changed landscape. In previous iterations of the plan, land loss was shown on maps in red. The design team reframed this to show land change in blue and green, communicating that change is inevitable, but communities are able to adapt.
By making complex data visually accessible to broad audiences, the plan empowers communities across parishes and regions to see themselves as active participants in Louisiana's coastal future.
By making complex data visually accessible to broad audiences, the plan empowers communities across parishes and regions to see themselves as active participants in Louisiana's coastal future.
This approach transforms the Master Plan from a technical document into a shared civic commitment, galvanizing diverse coalitions around the urgent work of climate adaptation.
The design team developed materials for outreach, education, and engagement, including model output maps, aerial regional views, explanatory diagrams, data visualizations, and fact sheets for each project, parish, community, and region. The fact sheets consist of data overviews of plan impacts and benefits at the Regional, Parish, Community, and Project levels.
For communities that have watched land disappear, marshes thin, and storms intensify, despair is an understandable response. When people feel excluded from decisions, or believe the losses are too great to reverse, they disengage. The 2023 Coastal Master Plan was designed to counter that by offering a clear-eyed account of what the landscape still is, and a shared framework for what it could become.
By tailoring recommendations to each region, the master plan better reflects the experiences of coastal residents. Each piece of collateral empowers local leaders and residents to make decisions using information specific to them.
By tailoring recommendations to each region, the master plan better reflects the experiences of coastal residents. Each piece of collateral empowers local leaders and residents to make decisions using information specific to them.
The Louisiana coast is extraordinary in scale and consequence, sustaining ecological and economic systems that the entire country depends on. Its wetlands form the largest contiguous marsh system in the lower 48 states, supporting biodiversity found nowhere else in the country.
What makes the Louisiana coast a national asset is also what makes it irreplaceable: it is not just a system of marshes and shipping channels, but a living landscape shaped by the communities that have worked and inhabited it for centuries.
Ultimately, the master plan functions as a long-term guide to restoration and risk reduction investments throughout the state, undertaken in parallel to related efforts to promote sustainable commercial and recreational activities across the coast, and is a key tool in organizing collective action and funding centered on protecting and restoring the coast.
Ultimately, the master plan functions as a long-term guide to restoration and risk reduction investments throughout the state, undertaken in parallel to related efforts to promote sustainable commercial and recreational activities across the coast, and is a key tool in organizing collective action and funding centered on protecting and restoring the coast.
Legislature approves Louisiana's 50-year coastal master plan.
$50 billion worth of levee and wetland restoration projects called for in updated plan.
Tristan Baurick
NOLA.com
Louisiana is now leading the nation in coastal planning and management, using the best available science to effectively allocate resources.
Given the success of the 2023 Master Plan, SCAPE is working with the CPRA to develop the 2029 Coastal Master Plan using improved adaptation strategies to better sustain the coast and its communities for generations to come.
Client
Louisiana Coastal Protection & Restoration Authority (CPRA)
Collaborators
Arcadis
Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center
Awards
ASLA Professional Awards: Honor Award – Communications (2024)
LC-ASLA: Honor Award - Communications (2024)
2024 Coastal Stewardship Award from the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana
Press
For questions, please contact SCAPE
press@scapestudio.com
Explore Louisiana’s 2023 Coastal Master Plan Data Viewer
Visit the CPRA website for more information, updates, and opportunities for engagement
View the CPRA 2023 Master Plan
Learn more in these videos: Planning With Uncertainty and Project Benefits
Read more from Halle Parker for WWNO (January 2023)
