EcoResilience MRD
Team information
Category:
Aastha Pandey
fresh graduate
Stockholm University
Leida Wijgerse
Master
Wageningen University and Research
Luz Maria Cohaila Calatayud
Master
Uppsala University
Diego Pizarro
Master
Uppsala university
Ozioma Ugwu
Master
University of Gothenburg
Kexin Chen
Master
University College London
María-Alejandra Casas
Master
Lund University
This project is being coached by
About the team
From Asia, Africa, America and Europe, our paths converged with one shared mission: sustainability. We are a transdisciplinary team combining environmental science, social science, urban planning, artificial intelligence, communications, and water management. Driven by curiosity and diversity, we aim to create a sustainable proposal that strengthens ecological resilience, fosters social inclusion, and uses innovative communication to turn knowledge into impactful action for a more harmonious Mississippi River Delta at Lousiana.
Our vision
By 2120, the Mississippi River Delta is a thriving, climate resilient region where people live in a biocentric relationship with the environment, enhancing ecosystem services and following nature based design. The Delta functions as a vast sponge landscape: wetlands, ridges, marshes, and restored floodplains absorb, store, and slowly release water across seasons. Controlled river reconnection transforms seasonal floods into land building processes, while freshwater retention wetlands and sediment diversions secure water during droughts and reduce salinity stress. Food production is regenerative and water smart. Integrated agriculture- aquaculture system that rescues Indigenous knowledge, women led fisheries, and wetland compatible agriculture ensure food security without degrading ecosystems. Oyster reefs, marsh mosaics, and restored hydrology enhance biodiversity, stabilize shorelines, and sustain fisheries that support local economies. Nature guides all development. Habitat corridors, living shorelines, and hydrologic restoration maintain dynamic freshwater-saltwater gradients that support pollinators, migratory birds, and resilient fisheries. Transportation, industry, energy, and housing shift toward low impact, equitable systems. Elevated green housing clusters, electrified transit, and distributed renewable energy reduce emissions and protect residents. The region’s energy transition blends wind and solar with community scale biogas systems that convert diverse waste streams into clean energy, reinforcing the circular economy. Citizen science platforms, supported by AI enhanced monitoring, allow residents to track salinity, elevation change, vegetation recovery, and flood attenuation. Machine learning models analyze these datasets to detect early warning signals and optimize water management and risk plans strategies. Social equity is central. Cultural traditions, such as those of the Mardi Gras Indians and other communal healing practices, are protected through community stewardship. Community ownership and an activated entrepreneurial ecosystem ensure that historically marginalized groups benefit from restoration, fisheries, green infrastructure, and climate resilient development. Through these transitions, the Mississippi River Delta becomes a region where nature leads, communities flourish, and climate uncertainty is met with creativity, justice, and ecological strength.
Our inventory & analysis
The Mississippi River Delta is naturally composed of fine-grained sediments, extensive wetlands, and barrier islands, with ecological functioning highly dependent on fluvial sediment delivery that is now largely confined to the river channel rather than spread across surrounding wetlands. However, decades of levee construction, channelization, and flood-control infrastructure have disrupted overbank flooding, sediment transport, and delta-building processes, making it harder for wetlands to keep pace with subsidence and relative sea-level rise and accelerating wetland loss. Under climate change, sea-level rise, stronger storm surge, barrier-island fragmentation, and saltwater intrusion further increase inundation and wind-wave erosion risks, threatening freshwater resources, biodiversity, and fisheries-based livelihoods, including salinity-sensitive oyster and estuarine nursery habitats. Socially, population and infrastructure are concentrated in New Orleans and along the river corridor and metro fringe, while protection is strongest within major levee and floodwall systems and communities outside those perimeters face higher residual risk, leaving low-income and marginalized groups disproportionately exposed. Dependence on climate-sensitive sectors, particularly oil and gas and fisheries, further amplifies long-term vulnerability and can constrain restoration choices where canals and pipelines shape hydrology and salinity shifts affect livelihoods.