Satellite view of Barataria Basin on September 3, 2021.Sixteen years to the day after Hurricane Katrina made landfall in southern Louisiana, another powerful hurricane hit the state. On August 29, 2021, Hurricane Idaat Port Fourchon with sustained winds of 150 miles per hour. The tide surged up to 14 feet above sea level in some places and slammed into marshes and swamps west of the Mississippi River, eroding soil and vegetation.
Potter found that following Ida, more than 680 square kilometers of wetlands in Barataria Basin and Terrebonne Basin transformed into open water. The map below shows where wetlands in southern Louisiana disappeared after Ida, as calculated by Potter comparing Landsat data from June 2021 to September 2021. The analysis looked at the difference between pixels identified as water before and after Ida. Land loss occurred along most of the southern-facing shorelines of the Barataria Basin.