After Hurricane Ida, the Map of Louisiana May Never Look the Same Again

Satellite images of Louisiana taken before and after Hurricane Ida show a dramatically spay coastline , with many low - lying area still inundated with piss . Scientists are carefully monitoring the landscape to see how it evolve over clock time , and whether some changes are lasting .

Hurricane Ida madelandfallon August 29 — the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina . The category 4 storm made a jam of Louisiana , dinge the state with strong flatus , heavy rain , and tempest surges . Ida was one of the unassailable storms to hit the state , causing mass power outage , wrecking homes and clientele , damaging road and bridges , and causing26 deathsin the Department of State .

It also reshaped the landscape , though for how long we do not be intimate . Ida swept through the Mississippi Delta , a region already vulnerable to the steady encroachment of the Atlantic Ocean . Levees , upstream dams , and rising sea levels due to human - instigate climate change are causing wetland area to lento squinch and even go away . Other human activities , such as the pumping of groundwater and oil , are also contributing to this process , as is the natural sinking and subsidence of new delta deposit , accordingto NASA ’s Earth Observatory .

A section of the Mississippi Delta on September 3, just five days after Hurricane Ida.

A section of the Mississippi Delta on September 3, just five days after Hurricane Ida.Image: Joshua Stevens/Landsat/U.S. Geological Survey

Images from space read before and after the hurricane show an altered river delta . A Landsat 8 orbiter photograph show the New Orleans region as it was on September 19 , 2015 , and then as it looked on September 3 , 2021 , five day after Ida hit the part .

Water pullulate with deposit appear light blue in these false - color images . A natural color image of the same region ( below ) shows these sediment - filled body of water in an unsightly brownish hue , particularly Lake Maurepas , Lake Pontchartrain , and the northwest coast of Lake Borgne .

The floodwaters were still present five days after the storm . Rivers , coastline , lakes , and marshes in the Lafourche , Jefferson , and Plaquemines parishes are scarce placeable . A sobering satellite double of area in Lafourche Parish near Larose point the soggy landscape near a low - lying farm .

This satellite image of the Mississippi River was taken on Sept. 19, 2015.

This satellite image of the Mississippi River was taken on Sept. 19, 2015.Image: Joshua Stevens/Landsat/U.S. Geological Survey

“ A combination of implosion therapy , eating away , and defoliation during Ida likely created many of the novel patches of open water visible in the Landsat picture , ” Marc Simard , principal tec for NASA ’s Delta - X foreign mission , told Earth Observatory .

The Delta - X athletic field campaign along the Mississippi Delta is presently tracking changes to sediment and marsh dynamics as a result of Hurricane Ida . Later this month , when the waters have drop off further , the team will conduct footing visits and use boats to inspect the area , in addition to using airy radar .

“ One of the interesting things to look on will be to see if the stark changes you see in this Landsat image prove to be temporary or long long-lived , ” Simard said . “ Some of the losses may have been floating plants that washed away or plants that but lost their seasonal leaves and will credibly mature back . Others were exterminate and will no longer offer the coastal protection they once did . ”

The same region as seen on Sept. 3, 2021, five days after hurricane Ida swept through.

The same region as seen on Sept. 3, 2021, five days after hurricane Ida swept through.Image: Joshua Stevens/Landsat/U.S. Geological Survey

The Delta - go squad contrive to track salinity stage to see if saltwater marshes might supplant fresh water marshes . They ’re also trust for an inflow of river deposit , which could replenish eat at coastal areas and give plant a place to live .

“ I imagine we ’ll see that respectable wetlands with plenty of incoming sediment will be far more live than wetlands which receive minuscule or no deposit from river discharge , ” Simard said . “ Our hope is that the models being develop by Delta - X scientist will provide a realistic perceptiveness into the vulnerability and resilience of wetland in this region in the long - term . ”

Realistic being the key tidings . Human - induce climate modification means the Mississippi Delta is now under assault from the environment , and it may never bounce back . And of course , there ’s always the next hurricane to dread .

A true-color image of the same region, also taken on Sept. 3, 2021.