At the southern edge of the United States, where the continent meets the Gulf of Mexico, lies one of the world's most dynamic and troubled landscapes: the Mississippi River Delta. Once a land of abundance, this vast region of wetlands and waterways faces a crisis that is as much cultural as it is environmental.
Every hour, Louisiana loses about a football field of land to the sea. The causes are layered: rising seas, sinking ground, hurricanes, industrial canals, levees that starved wetlands of sediment. And yet, amid this slow-motion catastrophe, there is also resilience, creativity, and the possibility of a nature-based future.
For this year's Nature-based Future Challenge, students from around the world are invited to grapple with these very questions: How can we protect communities, ecosystems, and cultures in a delta that is literally disappearing?
To better understand both the complexity and the opportunities of the region, we spoke with two experts who know Louisiana's coast intimately: Krista Jankowski, a geoscientist and strategic planner at Arcadis, with over a decade of experience in climate resilience, and James Karst, communications director for the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana (CRCL) and a former Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.
Living on the Edge of Water
"Louisiana is unique because the ground here is sinking while the sea level is rising," Jankowski explained. "That combination makes it one of the most vulnerable places in the world."
Subsidence, land sinking as sediment compacts, would be a manageable challenge in some parts of the world. But in Louisiana, where there is little solid rock and almost no elevation, the effect is catastrophic. The river once carried sediment south, replenishing wetlands and creating new land each time it shifted course. Human efforts to control it, with levees, canals, and floodwalls built for navigation, agriculture, and safety, have stopped that process. "The river built our land," Jankowski said. "Our levees turned off that land-building machine."
The result is a coast without its natural defences. Wetlands that once absorbed storm surge now erode into open water. Saltwater pushes inland, threatening drinking supplies and crops. And hurricanes, supercharged over the hot Gulf, reach New Orleans and its suburbs with fewer miles of marsh to blunt their force.
Culture at Risk
For Karst, who has lived in New Orleans for 25 years, the struggle is personal. "New Orleans is a magical place with a distinct culture, and it is worth preserving," he said. Jazz, Mardi Gras, parades, Creole cuisine, these are not just cultural exports but living traditions rooted in the delta.
Yet communities along the coast are fading away. Insurance premiums have risen beyond affordability, yet heavy storms repeatedly leave behind damaged homes. Families whose parents and grandparents lived by shrimping or oystering are leaving. Houses are sold off not to new neighbours, but to weekend visitors who use them as fishing camps. "It degrades the culture," Karst said. "Communities are not the same when people no longer live there full time."
The loss is slow and uneven, often without fanfare. Cemeteries slip under salty water, citrus orchards become oyster beds. In Leeville, once home to over a thousand residents, only a handful of families remain.
Working With, Not Against, Nature
The fight to slow this loss has taken many forms. Since 2007, Louisiana's Coastal Master Plan has guided restoration with a principle that might seem obvious but is radical in its context: work with natural processes rather than against them.
Among the most ambitious are sediment diversions, gated openings in levees designed to allow the river, during high flows, to carry water and sediment into starving wetlands. They are an attempt to replicate the river's ancient land-building function. "It is about letting the river do what it wants to do," Jankowski explained. Controversial with shrimpers and oystermen who fear short-term disruption, diversions remain one of the only large-scale interventions capable of sustaining the delta over the long term.
Other approaches are smaller, but no less vital. CRCL's Oyster Shell Recycling Program is deceptively simple. Since 2014, the organisation has collected millions of pounds of shells from New Orleans restaurants, cured them in the sun, and stacked them along eroding shorelines in heavy mesh bags. Over time, they become living reefs: baby oysters attach to the shells, filtering water, growing vertically with rising seas, and buffering the coast from waves.
"It interrupts the water, slows the erosion, and provides habitat," Karst explained. Volunteers, students, families, retirees, help carry 30-pound bags into place, turning last night's dinner into tomorrow's defence. The scale is modest compared to the immensity of land loss, but the principle is powerful. Sometimes resilience starts with what you already have.
In cities, green infrastructure offers another lens. Bioswales and water gardens hold stormwater during heavy rains, easing the strain on pumps and pipes that constantly drain New Orleans. Even discarded Christmas trees have been bundled and dropped into wetlands, forming makeshift breakwaters where fish and crabs take shelter.
"These projects show what is possible when you look at natural systems as allies," Jankowski said. "It is not about fighting the water, it is about working with it."
Listening to Communities
Both experts stress that no project can succeed without the people who live here. "Any instance you get to listen to folks about how they are really experiencing the coast, do it," Jankowski urged. "Be open to having your assumptions challenged."
Karst added: "You cannot just tell people, 'Why don't you leave?' People do not want to leave. This is their home, their livelihood, their culture."
The tension is real. Some communities welcome relocation, while others cling to traditions rooted in the bayou. Some projects face fierce opposition from fishers who fear losing their grounds, even as scientists argue the same projects will save the coast for future generations. Politics, funding, and trust are as central to this story as sediment and storms.
"There is no silver bullet," Karst said. "Many creative ideas have to work together, and soon."
A Call to Students
This autumn, students will take on the Mississippi Delta in the Nature-based Future Challenge, designing bold ideas to help secure the future of this "fragile giant". It is a region where centuries of human intervention collided with natural forces, and where the cost of inaction is visible in sunken cemeteries, abandoned schools, and vanishing marsh. But it is also a place of experimentation, where communities, scientists, and advocates are testing nature-based solutions with global implications.
As Jankowski put it: "A successful future is one where people can still live along the coast, safely. It may not look the same, but the culture and livelihoods continue."
The Challenge invites students worldwide to imagine that vision. Over three rounds, teams will first develop a plan for the entire Mississippi River Delta, then zoom in on one area to design concrete nature-based solutions, and finally bring their ideas to life through a pitch and a story. Along the way, they will receive guidance from experts, take part in workshops, and gain experience that can shape their careers.
This is where you come in. Join the Challenge, or share it with those who might. The Mississippi Delta needs new visions, and your contribution could be one of them.
