LSU, Rhode Island received $4M grant to expand wetlands science work

Louisiana State University, in partnership with the University of Rhode Island, has been awarded a $4 million National Science Foundation grant to advance wetland science.

The funding will be used to both build new planning tools and connect data from existing programs to preserve Louisiana’s delta wetlands and Rhode Island’s salt marsh ecosystems, according to an LSU news release.

The team working on the project, dubbed EcoCare, hopes to draw more research consistency between the two different types of wetland ecosystems as well as better connect economists and legal scholars to scientific research to improve coastal modeling and restoration planning tools.

The project is funded for four years, through 2030.

Louisiana’s lead investigator for the project, Xiaochen Zhao, said in a news release that the money will help LSU and partners such as the Louisiana Coastal Restoration and Protection Authority “combine coastal modeling, AI, wetland ecology and economic valuation to inform restoration decisions where it matters most” alongside Rhode Island researchers.

The idea is to get these modeling tools more input from across different academic and geographic areas, bettering their ability to preserve coastal areas across the country.

Zhao said the combination of the two institutions on the project will be a big help, “achieving far more than either state could alone.”

As well as funding ongoing projects in Louisiana, such as efforts to better predict coastal flooding, hurricane-driven flooding and land building in Mississippi River bird’s foot delta, the money will support five early-career faculty over the project four-year span.

LSU will also use the money to host a two-week, paid summer workshop during years two and three of the project for up to 15 students from Louisiana community colleges and the Rhode Island state program that supports minority-serving institutions. 

Sam Bentley, an LSU professor and co-director for the Mississippi River Delta Transition Initiative, said the money will put current research and outreach efforts on fighting coastal land loss to the test in a way that benefits both the research and people living in coastal areas.

“We put real effort into co-producing our research with the agencies and communities who live each day with deltaic change. EcoCare takes our methods and co-production model and asks whether they hold up somewhere that looks nothing like the bird’s foot,” Bentley said in LSU’s news release. “That’s the honest test, and how our modeling meets community needs both in and beyond Louisiana.”