1. science
2. weather
3. meteorological disaster
4. hurricane

Deltaic Dilemmas:
Ecologies of Infrastructure in New Orleans
Joshua Lewis
Deltaic Dilemmas
Ecologies of Infrastructure in New Orleans
Joshua Lewis
©Joshua Lewis, Stockholm University 2015
ISBN 978-91-7649-239-0
Cover Image blend of imagery from NASA, USACE, and the author
Printed in Sweden by Publit, Stockholm 2015
Distributor: Stockholm Resilience Centre
To Uncle Hammett
Acknowledgements
Firstly thanks to my main supervisor and co-author Henrik Ernstson, for
encouraging me to take on this challenge, and for providing guidance and
steadfast solidarity throughout the process. Thanks to Thomas Elmqvist for
years of support and encouragement, and to Sverker Sörlin for taking me on
as a student. Thanks to Wayne Zipperer, who oversaw the vegetation
research and functioned as a de facto supervisor on that component of the
project. Thanks to Stephanie Piper, Dave Baker, Nathan Cooper, and
especially Rebecca Hazen for their assistence in the field in New Orleans.
One has never truly lived until they’ve measured tree diameters on
abandoned lots in the sweltering Louisiana humidity. Thanks to Ashley
Carse, with whom, along with Henrik Ernstson, much of the analytical
framework presented in this thesis was developed. Thanks to Mike Blum and
Shelley Meaux at Tulane University for hosting the New Orleans research
activities. Edgar Pieterse and Gordon Pirie and the staff at the African Centre
for Cities at the University of Cape Town graciously hosted me for several
months in 2012, and thanks to Andrea Eckstein, Lea-Mo, and Dante for
keeping a roof over my head in Cape Town. Thanks to Hammett and Ulrika
for doing the same in Stockholm.
The Department of Systems Ecology and the Stockholm Resilience Centre
provided a unique research environment and sense of community that I am
proud to now be a product of. Thanks to SRC scientific director and
sometimes lead vocalist in my band Carl Folke for demonstrating what
innovative ideas and a joyful spirit can achieve. The SRC PhD cohort helped
keep me stay human over the final year, most notably Vanessa Masterson,
Johan Enqvist, and Simon West. Thanks to the interview and focus group
participants in New Orleans, who were generous with their time and their
insights. The Swedish Research Council Formas is acknowledged for
providing funding for this research through the research grant “Socioecological Movements and Transformative Collective Action in Urban Ecosystems” (MOVE, Dnr: 211-2011-1519) and led by Dr. Henrik Ernstson.
Abstract
This thesis explores the relationship between water infrastructure, ecological
change, and the politics of planning in New Orleans and the Mississippi
River Delta, USA. Complex assemblages of water control infrastructure
have been embedded in the delta over the last several centuries in an effort to
keep its cities protected from floodwaters and maintain its waterways as
standardized conduits for maritime transportation. This thesis investigates
the historical development of these infrastructural interventions in the delta’s
dynamics, and shows how the region’s eco-hydrology is ensnared in the
politics and materiality of pipes, pumps, canals, locks, and levees. These
historical entanglements complicate contemporary efforts to enact largescale ecosystem restoration, even while the delta’s landscape is rapidly eroding into the sea. This historical approach is extended into the present through
an examination of how waterway standards established at so-called chokepoints in the global maritime transportation system (the Panama Canal, for
example) become embedded and contested in coastal landscapes and port
cities worldwide. Turning towards urban ecology, the thesis examines socioecological responses to the flooding following Hurricane Katrina in 2005,
with a special focus on how infrastructure failures, flooding intensity, and
land abandonment are driving changing vegetation patterns in New Orleans
over the past decade. The thesis contributes new conceptual language for
grappling with the systemic relations bound up in water infrastructure, and
develops one of the first studies describing urban ecosystem responses to
prolonged flooding and post-disaster land management. This provides insights into the impending planning challenges facing New Orleans and
coastal cities globally, where rising sea levels are bringing about renewed
attention to how infrastructure is implicated in patterns of ecological change,
hazard exposure, resilience, and social inequality.
Sammanfattning
Denna avhandling undersöker relationer mellan infrastruktur för vattenhantering, ekologisk förändring och politiken kring urban och regional
planering i New Orleans och Mississippis floddelta i USA. Med syfte att
skydda städerna i Mississippis floddelta från översvämningar samt skapa
standariserade vattenvägar för ökad sjöfartshandel, så har en rad infrastrukturprojekt genomförts under de senaste hundratals åren. Avhandlingen
visar hur dessa infrastrukturprojekt för vattenhantering kan ses som komplexa sammanslutningar, så kallade assemblage som för samman kapital,
expertis, betong och ingenjörskonst och bildar en integrerad del i regionala
ekosystem. Avhandlingen utgår från en detaljerad historisk analys av hur
infrastrukturutvecklingen har blivit en del av floddeltats dynamik med ofta
oväntade effekter och konflikter. Regionens ekohydrologi har blivit insnärjd
i politiken och materialiteten kring rör, pumpar, kanaler, slussar och långsträckta skyddsvallar. Trots att floddeltat nu snabbt eroderar och utsätts för
större risker, så är det just dessa historiska och konfliktfyllda sammanlänkningar som komplicerar försök som görs idag för storskalig ekologisk restaurering av floddeltat. Genom en jämförande studie med Panamakanalens
tillkomst och utveckling, så vidarutvecklas den historiska beskrivning för att
analysera hur standarder inom sjöfarten (t.ex. kanaldjup, -bredd etc.) har
färdats genom ingenjörsexpertis, planeringsdokument och lagar för att integreras och förändra andra lika konfliktfyllda ekosystem, kustlandskap och
hamnstäder runt om i världen. En ytterligare utveckling riktar sig mot urbanekologi. Baserat på historisk förståelse och landskapsekologisk analys så
undersöks hur vegetationsmönster i New Orleans har förändrats under de
senaste årtiondet efter orkanen Katrina 2005. Denna socioekolgiska respons
analyseras i ljuset av översvämningens intensitet, infrastrukturens misslyckade med att skydda vissa sociala grupper och varierande grad av övergiven
mark. Sammantaget bidrar avhandlingen med begreppsutveckling för att
förstå hur systemrelationer uppstår i fältet mellan vatteninfrastruktur och
regionala ekosystem. Den bidrar också en av de första studierna om hur
ekosystem reagerar på långtidsöversvämmning och markförvaltning efter
katastrofer. Tillsammans bidrar detta med insikter kring överhängande
planeringsutmaningar som New Orleans och andra kuststäder i världen står
inför. Avhandlingen visar hur infrastruktur, i en tid med stigande havsnivåer
och global uppvärming, måste ses som en integrerad del av ekologiska
förändringar, risk, resiliens, och social ojämlikhet.
List of Papers
I.
Lewis, J. A., Yoachim, A. M., & Meffert, D. J. (2015). Crisis on the Delta:
Emerging trajectories for New Orleans. Chapter 6 in Climate Change and the
Coast: Building Resilient Communities. Glavovic, B. C., Kelly, M., Kay, R.,
and Travers, A., eds. Boca Raton: CRC Press, Taylor and Francis Group.
II.
Lewis, J.A., Zipperer, W.C., Hazen, R., Elmqvist, T., Ernstson, H. Socioecological dynamics in response to urban flooding and land abandonment in
New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. [Prepared for submission to Landscape and Urban Planning]
III.
Lewis, J.A. (Forthcoming) The Disappearing River: Infrastructure and Urban
Nature in New Orleans. Chapter 2 in Grounding Urban Natures, Ernstson,
H., and Sörlin, S., eds.
IV.
Carse, A., Lewis, J.A. (Accepted) Towards a Political Ecology of Maritime
Transportation: Infrastructural Zones, Standardized Environments, and Collective Action. Environment and Planning A.
V.
Lewis, J.A., Ernstson, H. Contesting the Coast: Socioecological Cleavages
and Coastal Planning in the Mississippi River Delta.
[Manuscript prepared for submission to Progress in Planning]
Contents
Introduction
16
Methods
23
Study Area
29
Summary of Papers
32
Concluding Remarks
35
Introduction
“To think about infrastructure,” writes the anthropologist Vyjayanthi Rao,
“is to invoke both the promise of a future as well as imminent trauma”
(2014:1106). A decade after Hurricane Katrina’s landfall, this sentiment
resonates with dilemmas facing communities along the lower reaches of the
Mississippi River, and in its largest city, New Orleans. Similar opportunities
and risks are carried by coastal and deltaic cities globally, where urbanization has in so many cases been rendered through the infrastructural control
of water, and where the economic, ecological, and humanitarian stakes of
those infrastructures functioning as intended in the face of rising seas is high
indeed. In New Orleans, moments hailed as infrastructural triumphs over
nature have been followed by infrastructure failures that disturb and destroy
economies, neighborhoods, ecosystems, families, and human lives. And still,
for those committed to dwelling in the Mississippi River’s rapidly eroding
deltaic plain, survival depends upon the levees, floodwalls, pipes, siphons,
pumps, and barriers that have been manipulating water flows in the delta for
centuries. As much as water infrastructure is implicated in urban flooding
and ecological change, it is also posited as a solution to its own unintended
effects and contradictions. For instance, while earlier water infrastructures
have driven processes that made urban settlements in the Mississippi Delta
more vulnerable to flooding, planners, ecologists, and engineers are now
pushing to re-engineer the river’s lower reaches. This will entail the installation of control structures to allow the river to replenish its deltaic plain near
New Orleans. These river diversions could sustain and produce coastal landscapes like forested swamps, marshes, and barrier islands, which have been
shown to attenuate wave action and buffer storm surges (Spalding et al.,
2014; Temmerman and Kirwan, 2015; Wamsley et al., 2010).
Rising seas, intense storms, degraded estuaries, and insufficient, aging flood
control infrastructure are coalescing to generate new planning challenges on
a rapidly urbanizing planet. As Seto (2011) explains, by 2050, global population will grow by 2.7 billion people, mostly in small and medium sized
cities in Africa and Asia, with coastal and deltaic cities being a “preferred
migration destination over other locations” (Seto, 2011). Worldwide, 60% of
human population is clustered around coasts and estuaries, mostly in urban
areas (Bridges et al., 2013; Lindeboom, 2002). Nearly half a billion people
already live on or near river deltas (Syvitski et al., 2009). Estuaries and
16
coastal zones are sites of intensive capital investment and economic production. It is estimated that 50% of US population occurs, and 50% of US GDP
originates in coastal environments (Kildow et al., 2009). Projections suggest
that unprotected coastal terrain less than a meter above sea level will be inundated by 2100 (Nicholls et al., 2014; Pachauri et al., 2014). While many
human settlements along coastlines will be forced to retrofit, modernize, or
adapt flood protection systems, this is especially true in river deltas, where
naturally occurring and anthropogenically induced subsidence, rapid land
loss, and reduced river sediment loads place already low-lying terrain close
to or even below sea level. Human habitation of deltas has always entailed
the displacement of human and ecological communities as riverine and oceanic forces interact and land masses shift, but trends suggest that a population explosion in delta cities is progressing even while many deltas are losing ground to the sea. Engineering interventions and infrastructure systems
constructed in deltaic systems have caused severe land subsidence and direct
land loss, dwarfing current and projected rates of sea level rise. In this sense,
climate change is exacerbating an already pressing crisis (Syvitski et al.,
2009; Tessler et al., 2015). Water and sediment flows constricted through
flood control systems, saltwater intrusion through artificial or deepened waterways, petroleum and groundwater extraction, and urban development each
contribute to ecological regime shifts, direct land loss, and subsidence (Blum
and Roberts, 2009; Kolker et al., 2011; Shaffer et al., 2009; Yuill et al.,
2009).
This thesis explores the role of water infrastructure in processes of urbanization in the Mississippi River Delta and New Orleans. The thesis makes two
primary contributions. First is an in-depth historical study that demonstrates
the role of water infrastructure in transforming the ecology of the delta and
producing uneven distributions of environmental risk, flooding vulnerability,
and capital accumulation. Through this historical material my co-authors and
I trace the politics and ecology of infrastructure through critical historical
junctures, when major decisions regarding the region’s hydrology were inscribed into technical designs for canal networks and drainage systems. As
we show, the environmental benefits and hazards generated by such interventions have accrued unevenly across space and social difference. Largescale infrastructure networks carry path-dependence and obduracy. In other
words, due to the various technical and ecological assumptions (and capital
investments) that must be made to implement them, it can be difficult to
adapt their operations if the political or environmental parameters upon
which those assumptions were based change over time. This dynamic is relevant today as cities begin implementing water management strategies to
cope with the conjoined challenges of rapid population growth, aging infrastructure, and global climate change.
17
Secondly, the thesis reports findings on a study of socioecological responses
to infrastructure failure, urban flooding and land abandonment in New Orleans. This is the first in-depth study of the effects of high-intensity flooding
disturbances on the dynamics of urban ecosystems. This cross-disciplinary
study finds that land abandonment patterns and municipal-level environmental management strategies are key indicators of the composition and pattern
of emergent vegetation in New Orleans in the decade following Hurricane
Katrina. Further, our analysis aims for greater synthesis of social and ecological data in identifying important socio-political factors driving vegetation
outcomes in the study area. This offers insights into the distribution of ecosystem services, disservices, and hazards in the urban landscape, demonstrating that post-Katrina vegetation dynamics are reinforcing historical patterns
of capital disinvestment and environmental risk in the region. Based on these
findings, we suggest that assertive environmental management following a
disaster can save resources in the long-term, and ensure that marginalized
communities are not further impacted by the disservices associated with the
fragmented management of urban vegetation.
This introductory text surveys relevant literature on infrastructure and ecological change, summarizes the methods utilized in the thesis, provides
background on the study area, and summarizes the papers contained herein.
Socioecologies of Infrastructure
Scholars of social-ecological systems have recently turned their attention to
refining their approach to better account for long-term dynamics, social
power, equity, and justice. As Fischer et al. (2015) recently argued, “[p]ower
and justice issues…should be incorporated into social–ecological analyses.
Key considerations to include are distributive justice and the sharing of
costs, benefits and risks, but also procedural justice, access to decisionmaking, and contextual equity linked to the histories of injustices and cultural domination” (Fischer et al., 2015). This is a welcome and important programmatic statement that acknowledges the field’s increasing engagement
with these concerns. Previously, power relations and justice issues have been
explored in a subset of research into social-ecological systems in urban settings (Ernstson, 2013; Ernstson et al., 2010; Ernstson et al., 2008) and smallscale fisheries (Crona and Bodin, 2010; Crona and Hubacek, 2010; Crona
and Parker, 2012), spurred on by constructive critique from related fields
(Cote and Nightingale, 2012; Ernstson and Sörlin, 2013; Smith and Stirling,
2010; Voß and Bornemann, 2011). The papers in the thesis seek to nurture
this interest in long-term social-ecological dynamics, social power, and environmental justice through an exploration of water infrastructure and flooding
disturbances in New Orleans. The following section reviews some relevant
18
literature that informed the research approach, which was developed closely
with my colleagues and co-authors.
Kaika and Swyngedouw describe infrastructure networks as “the material
mediators between nature and the city; they carry the flow and the process of
transformation of one into the other” (Kaika and Swyngedouw, 2000). Infrastructures which receive, transform, convey, and otherwise control flows of
water are especially important for mediating the ecological processes and
landscape dynamics that underpin the quality and distribution of ecosystem
services and environmental hazards in and around cities (Gandy, 2004, 2008;
Hatt et al., 2004; Kaye et al., 2006; Melosi, 2000). Drainage systems, shipping canals, wastewater-processing facilities are examples of such water
infrastructures, which more generally are integral to the dynamics of urban
social-ecological systems (Bulleri and Chapman, 2010; Hatt et al., 2004;
Heynen et al., 2006; Kaye et al., 2006; Monstadt, 2009; Swyngedouw, 2006;
Walsh et al., 2005).
The contribution of this thesis to the study of infrastructures lies in paying
closer attention to how water infrastructures and large-scale ecosystems are
co-produced over time. With a detailed and historical case study from Louisiana, this is paired with an attempt to understand the related forms of urban
governance, environmental management, and political contention that shape
the relations and feedbacks that characterize this process. This firstly demands attention to how ecosystems intervene in infrastructures, or become
enrolled and transformed as part of the functioning of infrastructures. There
have been few detailed, historical, infrastructure studies that focus on this
nexus, and this thesis departs and extends from relevant fields interested in
large-scale technology and the environment. Historical studies of sociotechnical systems have contributed in-depth studies over how modernist
infrastructure projects are more than simply technical networks, but shape
and are shaped by wider economic, sociocultural and knowledge structures
(Bijker et al., 2012; Geels, 2005; Williams and Edge, 1996). Urban political
ecologists (Swyngedouw, 1996; 2004; Heynen et al. 2006), relational and
critical geographers (Graham and Marvin, 2001; Karvonen, 2011) and urban
environmental historians (Cronon, 1991; Gandy, 2002) have focused more
closely on the relationships between networked infrastructures and processes
of urban change, including for instance how dams, turbines and cables can
become electricity to power homes and factories. These studies aim to understand how infrastructure networks transform or metabolize ‘nature’ to
shape built-up environments and produce water, electricity and other so
called sociomaterial flows. In this historical materialist view, infrastructures
are seen as emerging out of social relations of power, which results not only
in analyzing who finances, controls and profits from infrastructures, and who
benefits from them, but also how infrastructures shape (and are shaped by)
cultural discourses, and how they distribute power and privileges in society.
19
Infrastructures have consequently been used to understand—and critique—
society in terms of class, race, gender and geographical difference (Graham
and McFarlane, 2014; Monstadt, 2009).
This thesis aims to extend this work in urban political ecology by including a
more thorough look at how ecological relations are reworked through infrastructures over the long term. In this way, as developed with my colleague
(Lewis and Ernstson, in preparation; Paper V), we aim to extend the notion
of the ‘non-human,’ which seems not to take into account the real developments that have been made—although contested—within complex systems
and ecological theory (Scheffer et al., 2001; Scheffer and Carpenter, 2003).
Indeed, most studies in urban political ecology and human geography have
used the ‘non-human’ as an important, but also quite simplistic first step into
accounting for how the biophysical world is part of environmental and political projects (Lewis and Ernstson, in preparation; Paper V). We might refer
to these studies as ‘elemental’ in that they do not necessarily trace the wider
biophysical relations that ‘water’, ‘waste’, ‘alcohol’ or ‘plants’ are part of; or
‘materialistic’ in that they foreground the physicality of these entities, rather
than their ecological properties in how they are woven into ecological relations of mutualism, parasitism, commensalism etc. (ibid.) This has had two
effects. First, urban infrastructure studies have confined their critical analysis
to forms of nature that are already quite similar to “commodities”, such as
water, electricity, waste materials etc. This seems to pay more tribute to origins in political economy, than ecology (cf. Walker, 2006). Thus secondly,
this perspective seems more consistent with the “stock-flow” systems ecology of the Odum brothers (Odum, 1969; Odum et al., 1971) than the now
well-established work on uncertainty, complexity, and non-linearity in ecological systems (Holling, 1973; Holling, 1986; Lewontin and Levins, 1985).1
Certain post-structural strains of political ecology and geography present
interesting points of overlap with work on ecological complexity. Perspectives on the place of human action in wider “systemic relations” offer some
important insights into how we might grasp the politics and ecologies of
infrastructure. Take for example, Murdoch’s view of the embeddedness of
human affairs within a wider web of systemic relations, and the implications
this has for the politics of place, space, and nature. In this perspective, humans are seen as “part of wider collectives, situated in ecological formations” (Murdoch, 2006: 188). The ontological basis of this critical realist
stance can also be seen in political ecology, geography, STS, and the study
of social-ecological systems (Berkes and Folke, 1998). But unlike work on
social-ecological systems, which emphasizes how “desirable” ecological
formations emerge through institutional power, the adoption of rules and
1
This paragraph and several others are developed further with my co-author Henrik Ernstson
in Paper V and in an upcoming paper.
20
norms, and adaptive management, Murdoch and others suggest that disputes
and controversies over the politics of systemic relations should be approached with an acknowledgement that such complex entities are rife with
fragmented subjectivities, and that struggles over the meaning, identity, and
proper place of the non-human world are not typically resolved through consensus, but through “plays of power” (Murdoch, 2006: 9).
Others have worked to reconcile differing strands of human-environment
research that couple investigations into landscape ecological dynamics, and
the social relations of power, expertise, and knowledge intertwined therein.
These discussions informed the approach adopted in the thesis. Cote and
Nightingale (2011), in a constructive critique of social-ecological systems
and resilience research, advocate for “situating resilience problem formulations in contestations over knowledge,” which then “brings to the fore questions about whose resilience we are concerned with, and to what end” (482;
see also Ernstson, 2013). This has been viewed by Ernstson and Sörlin
(2009; 2013) as a question of social practices of value articulation, where
different groups struggle to establish the purpose and meaning of particular
landscapes and interventions. Ernstson (2008; 2013) also asks us to “crack”
open the social-ecological system with a two-folded perspective, one that
pays equal tribute to ecological complexity and concerns of environmental
justice and uneven development. This works to integrate an analysis of social power as part of social-ecological systems or urban ecologies (Ernstson,
2013). Recent exchanges and propositions between land change scientists
and political ecologists are also relevant here, in that they advocate for greater use of ecological data in political ecology, and more attention to uneven
development and power relations in ecological and landscape studies (Turner
and Robbins, 2008; Turner et al., 2007; Turner, 2013). These are exciting
cross-disciplinary ventures, and the thesis aims to advance research into
social-ecological systems by engaging in these conversations.
Infrastructural Zones and Ecological Regimes
The heuristics of infrastructural zones and ecological regimes comprise the
core conceptual thrust of the thesis. Infrastructural zones are assemblages
linked through technical standards, intended to generate “comparable results
in disparate domains” (Barry, 2006: 11). These are the geographies that
emerge as places are simultaneously connected, disconnected, and transformed by urbanization and globalization (Barry, 2006). Infrastructural
zones like power grids, drainage networks, and transportation systems are
path dependent, and their technical standards and spatial topologies are typically fixed within short historical windows. Decisions at one juncture can
“return” much later (ecosystem collapse, technical failure), haunting managers and engineers with complex problems years later. These windows are
21
also critical junctures in the development of the ecological regimes, sociomaterial flows, and patterns of human settlement that comprise urban regions. The notion of infrastructural zones builds on earlier work on infrastructure in the social sciences (Bowker, 1994; Bowker and Star, 2000;
Hughes, 1987; Star and Ruhleder, 1996), and provides a useful overall frame
for assessing the territorial, spatial, and environmental aspects of infrastructure projects, and how they actively produce landscapes.
Over time, water infrastructure becomes part of ecological systems. As material technology, they create and embody relations to water, sand, soil, but
also to humans, animals, bacteria, vegetation, the bio- litho- and atmosphere.
This thesis focuses on the “short historical windows” that decided the direction of infrastructural zones. Just as decisions over technical standards can
“return” much later, the complex relations of ecological systems can be unmade through infrastructural interventions, producing abrupt changes, or
what non-equilibrium ecologists have called ecological regime shifts (Biggs
et al., 2009; Folke et al., 2004; Lade et al., 2013; Scheffer et al., 2001;
Scheffer and Carpenter, 2003; Walker and Meyers, 2004). After passing a
critical threshold (eg. pollution loading, soil or water salinity, drought), ecosystems are thought to reorganize into a comparable relational configuration,
thus demonstrating resilience, or shift into a new ecological regime with
different “mutually reinforcing structures and processes” (Möllmann et al.,
2015; Rocha et al., 2015). Rocha and colleagues (2015) found that regime
shifts are especially common in coastal ecosystems, the “most highly threatened and productive [eco]systems in the world”, and identified anthropogenic factors as drivers of regime shifts, including “loss of habitat due to urbanization, human population growth, infrastructure development, increasing
sewage and pollution, declining water quality and increasing disease risk”
(Rocha et al, 2015: 9).
As the thesis describes, such shifts have unexpected social and ecological
effects. For instance, the dynamics the Mississippi River Delta’s have been
interrupted by various infrastructural zones. With no freshwater or river sediment replenishing it, marine ecosystems have encroached inland, and the
deltaic plain is degrading and subsiding into the sea. Deteriorating marshlands happen to be ideal habitat for several commercially important saltwater
species. This new ecological regime has thus become lucrative for commercial and recreational fisheries, but lacks the capacity to substantially buffer
storm surges, nor can this regime complement urban flood protection as well
as the coastal forests that ringed New Orleans before their collapse in the
1960s (Saltus et al., 2012). Once new ecological trajectories emerge, people
and institutions are faced with resource intensive efforts to restore previous
ecological regimes (sometimes impossible), invest in adaptation measures
that exploit the emergent ecological regime, or take measures to produce an
alternate desired regime. Over time, new economic, technological, and cul22
tural dependencies develop around emergent ecological regimes. This can
generate political constituencies that are committed to maintaining the new
status quo (Holling and Meffe, 1996). What is “desirable” is an open and
frequently contested matter, and controversies over which ecological regimes are appropriate and which ecosystem services should be prioritized is
subject to power-laden deliberations amongst scientists, policymakers, the
economic elite, and everyday citizens (Ernstson, 2013; Ernstson and Sörlin,
2013), deliberations which this thesis also addresses.
To sum up, infrastructural zones are produced through political processes
subject to plays of power and contestation. By manipulating water flows and
altering ecological regimes, infrastructures produce environments through
the application and maintenance of technical standards. These environments
subsequently facilitate capital accumulation, produce certain ecosystem services, disservices, and hazards, which are shared unevenly across space and
social difference. The systemic arrangements established through the provision of water infrastructure occur during short historical windows, or critical
junctures. These junctures can occur as responses to operational failures,
modernization pressures, or disasters. The infrequency of such occurrences
requires historical analysis to unravel the technical and ecological assumptions hard wired into landscapes whose dynamics are dominated by infrastructural zones. Taken together, these literatures enable us to grasp the socioecological dimensions of water infrastructure.
Methods
To study the historical co-development of water infrastructures, social relations, and ecological regimes, a range of methodological tools were used. As
sketched below, the methodological repertoire developed in this thesis draws
upon common practices in geography, urban forestry and ecology, and urban
political ecology. This methodological eclecticism is in line with other indepth studies of the historical dynamics of ecological change. For example,
Klepeis and Turner (2001) outline an historical approach to studying ecological change they call “land change science” and “integrated land history”.
This approach sets an explicit goal to produce studies of land transformation
that while maintaining a commitment to studying particular places, can also
be set in communication with studies of global environmental change. By
operating at a very specific spatial scale and building its account upon a rich
empirical base, this approach enables researchers to attend to the various
contingencies and particularities of the system under study, but with an eye
towards speaking across case studies and identifying the “constellation of
drivers” that operate at geographically situated, but also perhaps much
broader scales (Klepeis and Turner, 2001). The discussion in Paper IV of
how the waterway standards of the global maritime transportation systems
23
are embedded and negotiated in particular and disparate geographies reflects
a similar aim in this thesis. As Klepeis and Turner explain, this approach is
spatially explicit and multi-disciplinary, enabling research groups to take a
more exploratory approach to inquiry:
...land-use change and land-cover change research have the potential to reveal the dynamic character and complexity of humanenvironment conditions that lead to land change as well as the
non-linearity and scalar inconsistencies of processes acting upon
the land. In turn, the historically informed land-change science offers to land history three benefits of integration: analysis of the
strength of different theories and explanations by historical episode; provision of the geographical extent to which different
kinds of change and the pace of the change are applicable, at least
for the years for which aerial photography and satellite imagery is
available; and the role of biophysical feedbacks on the use systems. (29-30)
This perspective has similarities with studies of ecological resilience and
linked social-ecological systems (Gunderson and Holling, 2002). These assess processes of ecological change in a given system (e.g. the Everglades,
the Great Barrier Reef), seeks explanations for how social relations and
management regimes are intertwined with ecological dynamics, and usually
suggests potential management strategies for enhancing the resilience of a
particular ecological system, or actively transforming it into an alternate
stable state, or ecological regime (Folke, 2006; Gunderson et al., 2001;
Olsson and Folke, 2001; Olsson et al., 2004; Peterson, 2000).
Complementing this overall methodological orientation is that of environmental history and historical political ecology. Political Ecology (Robbins,
2012) is an interdisciplinary field whose practitioners range considerably
across the social and natural sciences. Generally speaking, the research program of political ecology originated as a way to bring together political
economy perspectives with the study of ecological change (Blaikie and
Brookfield, 1987). Historical approaches to political ecological analysis are
increasingly common, a line of inquiry described by Offen (2004) as a:
...field-informed interpretation of society-nature relations in the
past… how and why those relations have changed (or not
changed) over time and space, and the significance of those interpretations for improving social justice and nature conservation
today. (21)
Offen goes on to emphasize the idea of this research being “field informed,”
noting that this often involves “a lengthy field immersion that includes ethnography, surveys, participant observation, mappings, and often biophysical
24
research” (Offen, 2004). Davis (2009) reiterates Offen’s points, adding that
“[Historical Political Ecology (HPE)] also explicitly addresses the political
and economic forces of environmental change, environmental policy formulation, and environmental narratives” and that HPE researchers tend to “deliberately relate their research to contemporary situations in order to try to
envision/facilitate environmental development that is more socially just and
ecologically appropriate” (Davis, 2009). This thesis takes these methodological traditions onboard in its exploration of the urban environment.
It is with these overall research goals in mind that the methodological tools
described herein were developed. Working within a critical realist ontological frame, studying the interrelationships between water infrastructure, ecological systems, and human communities requires taking the materiality and
history of infrastructure seriously, analyzing ecological change in a way that
is nuanced and empirically robust, and approaching social relations in a
field-informed, reflexive manner.
Historical Archive Research
Much of the material presented in this thesis was developed as part of a narrative-driven case study, which sought to historicize and build understanding
of how ecosystem-infrastructure relations have developed in tandem over
time. This involved examining historical archives. Engineers design infrastructures, and fortunately, engineers tend to keep careful records, and the
annual reports of the New Orleans drainage and port authorities were important texts that illuminated how infrastructure networks are envisioned and
enacted from the perspective of government, industry, and the engineering
discipline. Aerial photography also proved useful, to trace land cover changes and the infrastructural interventions associated with them. Newspaper
articles, government reports, maps, schematics, environmental impact statements, and other texts were also examined for relevant information regarding
water infrastructure development in the region. Earlier historical treatments
of the region are excellent starting points for any investigation into infrastructure and the environment. These include book length works by geographers (Campanella, 2006, 2008; Colten, 2006; Lewis, 2003) and environmental historians (Kelman, 2006).
Much of the historical materials were examined at the Louisiana Research
Collection at Tulane University, the Louisiana/City Archive at the New Orleans Public Library, the Historic New Orleans Collection, the Louisiana and
Special Collections archive at the Earl K. Long Library at the University of
New Orleans. Newspaper articles were sometimes examined on microfilm,
and other times were located using keyword searches on the America’s His-
25
torical Newspaper database. The US Army Corps of Engineers also provided
historical material through direct correspondence.
Participant Observation
Prior to beginning my PhD studies at Stockholm University in 2011, I was
part of a unique partnership between the Center for Bioenvironmental Research at Tulane University in New Orleans, and a local neighborhood association. During the city’s Katrina recovery process, universities and other
local institutions worked to connect neighborhood groups and other small
non-profit organizations with financial resources, access to scientific expertise, volunteers, etc. Specifically, I worked alongside activists associated
with the Holy Cross Neighborhood Association, Citizens Against Widening
the Industrial Canal (CAWIC), and the Lower Ninth Ward Center for Sustainable Engagement and Development. These groups, all based in the Lower Ninth Ward neighborhood of New Orleans, engaged in a wide-ranging
suite of recovery initiatives, many of which had a programmatic focus on
environmental sustainability. The operation and maintenance of navigational
and drainage infrastructures in the study area were of major concern for these groups, as their neighborhood is situated at the nexus of multiple infrastructural networks, canals, and other water bodies. I participated in planning
meetings related to upcoming decisions on the management of the region’s
water infrastructures and ecosystems, of which there were many in the days
following Katrina. These meetings provided insights into how various activists and civic organizations perceived the environmental risks related to water infrastructures, and how these perceptions were then translated into public claims relating to public health, hazard mitigation, and environmental
injustice. These meetings also allowed me to become more acquainted with
certain long-time activists who I subsequently interviewed or invited to participate in a focus group. The importance of this aspect of my research approach for my understanding of the study area’s ecology and politics is evident in all five papers. Establishing my status as both a researcher and a local
resident who shared a commitment to certain flood protection and ecosystem
restoration initiatives was an important step in my own understanding of the
ecosystems, infrastructures, and politics of the study area.
In-depth Interviews and Focus Groups
To gather perspectives on how the implementation and management of water
infrastructures in the study area related to ecological and societal outcomes, I
conducted a series of in-depth interviews and organized several focus group
interviews with key informants, following an approach typical in social
movement studies (Della Porta, 2014; Della Porta and Diani, 2006) Three
focus groups were organized, with a total of 11 participants. In particular,
26
these focus group interviews asked respondents to characterize the trajectory
of ecological change in the study area, as they understood it, whether from
scientific findings or long-term observation. These focus groups inform in
the data reported in Paper II, Paper IV, and Paper V. 20 in-depth interviews were conducted with 18 respondents. These interviews were focused
primarily on contemporary politics relating to ecosystem management, flood
protection, and infrastructural systems in the study area. A subset of these
interviews, informing Paper II, focused on the relationship between urban
vegetation dynamics, flooding infrastructure failures, land abandonment, and
land management. This material required seeking out informants who were
knowledgeable about housing recovery policy and post-disaster environmental management. This pool of respondents consisted primarily of public officials in New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish, who were able to describe their
activities with regard to the maintenance of vegetation in the decade since
Katrina. In many instances, I was acquainted with participants prior to becoming a PhD student at Stockholm University in 2011. Since 2005, I have
participated as an activist and organizer on issues relating to infrastructure
and the urban environment in New Orleans and the Mississippi River Delta.
This afforded me the opportunity to become acquainted with many knowledgeable actors and long-time residents of the study area. In other instances,
this involved first attending public meetings and hearings relating to infrastructural initiatives and ecosystem management in the study area. Potential
participants were identified and approached at these meetings to participate
in the study. This included environmental activists concerned with the study
area but not living there, neighborhood activists and leaders living in the
study area, local and federal water engineers, long-time residents of the
study area, fishermen, and other public officials.
Geographic Information Systems (GIS)
The use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software was an important tool that cut across the range of data collection strategies involved in
the project. For Paper I, Paper II, and Paper V, ESRI ArcMap 10 was utilized in many instances to georeference historical archive material like maps
and aerial photos. This enabled me to build a database of spatial information
that traced the expansion of water infrastructures and the ecological shifts
and disturbance events that accompanied this process. Historical habitat data
provided by state agencies also enabled me to cross reference statements
from informants about historical events and drivers of ecological change in
the study area. GIS tools are particularly useful in the study of water infrastructure, because it enables us to see systems that, while perhaps invisible
or obscure, profoundly shape ecological dynamics and lived experiences of
people. In paper IV GIS software was used to conduct a number of procedures, which are described in greater detail in that paper. This involved
27
working with demographic data collected by the US Census Bureau, and
aerial imagery provided by government agencies that could be analyzed to
assess changes in vegetation cover in the study area following Hurricane
Katrina.
Urban Forestry and Ecology
Urban forestry can be considered a specialization within urban ecology, interested in the ecology and management of urban vegetation, and particularly
urban trees (Konijnendijk et al., 2006; Rowntree, 1984). Methods in urban
forestry vary depending on the type and structure of vegetation under study.
In the study of post-disturbance vegetation dynamics described in Paper II,
we wanted to capture species richness, composition, and structural attributes
of all urban vegetation – trees, shrubs, and herbaceous material. This was
carried out by establishing a point grid over the study area, and conducting a
detailed vegetation inventory on those survey plots. The details of the methods applied in this study, which involved both remote sensing and ecological
fieldwork, are described more fully in Paper II. Conducting ecological
fieldwork in neighborhoods that underwent severe flooding trauma and residential land abandonment carried with it a particular set of challenges and
observations for the researchers involved. On the one hand, our presence in
these neighborhoods and on these often abandoned properties involved frequent conversations and discussions with local residents, though these conversations were not part of the formal urban forestry research protocol.
However, spending months conducting intensive fieldwork in the study areas
was informative for the research project as a whole. Time spent measuring
the diameters of trees was also an opportunity to trace the legacy effects of
infrastructural interventions in the study area described in the other papers.
A collapsing containment dyke along a drainage canal, or an exposed foundation on a residence signified the long-term effects of urbanization on subsiding deltaic soils. Conversations with residents and property owners were
also illuminating, and discussions around land abandonment, vegetation
dynamics, and the presence of other animals like rats, possums, snakes, and
raccoons brought a naturalistic, if not properly ecological, depth to the research process.
A Note on Research Ethics
The in-depth and focus group interviews described above were carried out in
accordance with standard ethical guidelines in the social sciences regarding
the confidentiality of respondents. The focus group interview protocol was
submitted for Internal Review Board (IRB) approval at Tulane University,
28
and approval was granted.2 Respondents were compensated for the time
participating. The in-depth interviews followed the same ethics protocol, but
were conducted in a one-on-one setting with the researcher.
While it is beyond the scope of this thesis, developing a set of methodological reflections on conducting socioecological research in socially and economically unequal, post-disaster settings would no doubt be worthwhile.
There are particular conundrums that emerge in these contexts. For example,
in our urban forestry fieldwork, we were often in heavily flooded neighborhoods with low rates of population return. Some residents who approached
us asked us to provide resources to better manage overgrown vegetation, and
mitigate some of the problems associated with these unkempt properties. It
was also important to communicate to residents that we were not assessing
vegetation on properties as part of the enforcement of municipal codes or
ordinances. A future paper in which researchers working in post-disaster
contexts reflect on these concerns is one possibility to address this further
moving forward.
Study Area
Geographically, the thesis adopts a watershed approach (Grove and Burch,
1997; Likens, 2001). The study area is situated within the overall geography
of the Mississippi River Delta and US State of Louisiana (Figure 1). Within
the Mississippi River Delta, the study area is a watershed along the eastern
periphery of the city of New Orleans, USA, which historically drained into
Lake Borgne, an arm of the Gulf of Mexico (Figure 2). The study area
(600km2) consists of a subsiding estuary lying between the current course of
the Mississippi River, and two of its ancient distributaries, which form ridges
of high ground, bounding the estuary to the north and southeast (Figure 2).
These deltaic landscapes are often referred to as interdistributary basins, as
they comprise the low-lying swamps and marshes that develop between distributary channels. Several streams (or bayous) have historically drained
surface water, riverine floodwater, and carried tidal flows into the basin, the
most prominent of which is Bayou Bienvenue, whose winding course historically extended from the center of modern-day New Orleans to Lake Borgne
(Figure 2).
2
These focus groups were carried out in collaboration with Dr. Kevin Gotham at Tulane
University.
29
Figure 1. Mississippi River Delta and New Orleans in context. State of Louisiana highlighted in
grey, Mississippi River Delta highlighted in blue. Navigable waterways in the US interior are also
displayed.
In river deltas, the highest terrain is often found atop the banks of the river’s
active distributaries. The portions of the basin closest to the banks of the
Mississippi have been transformed into polders – drained enclosures protected by levees, where flows of water are almost entirely mediated by water
infrastructures like pumps, gates, siphons, and canals.
The extension of polders into interdistributary basins like the study area involves the drainage and reclamation of swamp and marshlands with peaty
soils, which are prone to subsidence when drained. While surface elevations
of swamplands are typically slightly above sea level, the urbanized polders
produced through drainage and enclosure have subsided considerably over
the 20th century, placing thousands of homes at risk and totally dependent
upon a complex drainage and flood protection system to prevent flooding.
These polders are home to most of the study area’s settlements and population centers, though these neighborhoods have been drastically depopulated
(nearly 50%) since Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
30
Figure 2. Study Area. Lake Borgne Estuary (red) along New Orleans's eastern periphery, and its main
drainage feature, Bayou Bienvenue (blue). Base imagery from NASA Landsat 8, 2015.
Beyond these polders, brackish and saline marshlands predominate, with
small patches of forested wetlands, and artificial ridges produced by the disposal of dredged material generated in canal excavation. Interdistributary
basins are typically characterized by a spectrum of water salinities that ranges from freshwater (<1ppt) near active riverine inputs, and saline (10-20ppt)
in the marshes skirting the Gulf of Mexico. This large variation in a relatively small geographical area has historically produced a wide range of deltaic
ecosystems, including ridgeline hardwood forests, forested swamplands,
brackish marshes, and saltmarsh (Saltus et al., 2012). These landscapes, especially forested wetlands, historically provided some measure of protection
from storm surges approaching New Orleans from the southeast. But during
the 20th century, a series of infrastructural interventions and hurricanes
pushed freshwater-dominated ecosystems over salinity thresholds, precipitating ecological regime shifts across the basin.
Interdistributary basins throughout the region have been subject to infrastructural interventions designed to enable urban and suburban development,
mobilize their oceanic connectivity for maritime transport, and prevent the
Mississippi River from replenishing the swamps and marshes with freshwater and sediment. In many instances, including in the study area, this constel31
lation of water infrastructure – pumps, levees, floodwalls, pumps, and siphons – have sped up the pace of land subsidence, saltwater intrusion, and
marine transgression into formerly freshwater-dominated landscapes. The
study area is alternately referred to in the thesis as the “Bienvenue Basin”
and the “Lake Borgne Estuary.” Papers II, IV, and V make use of this explicit geography to make claims and report findings.
Summary of papers
Paper I — Crisis on the Delta: Emerging Trajectories for New Orleans
The flooding of New Orleans and southeast Louisiana in 2005 triggered
considerable debate concerning the vulnerability of coastal cities to the effects of climate change. The current rate of relative sea-level rise along the
Louisiana coast is one of the highest in the world, and the political struggles
over flood protection and coastal wetland restoration are perhaps harbingers
of looming debates in coastal regions worldwide. This paper draws on historical archive research and participant observation in planning processes
following Hurricane Katrina to assess the range of planning challenges facing the region. The paper was developed as a book chapter in a book aimed
at urban and environmental planning scholars and practitioners in coastal
cities. The role of infrastructure in modifying the spatio-temporal patterns of
disturbances in the Mississippi Delta is described. The impacts of Hurricane
Katrina are assessed, as are the planning responses in the city and the Mississippi River Delta more generally. The paper concludes by offering policy
recommendations, which center on the implementation of large-scale coastal
restoration and engineering, providing socially just and dignified opportunities for flood-exposed communities to relocate to less vulnerable terrain,
stronger regulatory frameworks around oil and gas extraction and processing
activities, and the diversification of the regional economy beyond petroleum
and coastal fisheries. By providing a general overview of the interrelated
economic, political, and ecological crises facing the region, the chapter foregrounds the more empirically rich material presented in the subsequent papers. This paper was co-authored with Douglas Meffert and Ann Yoachim. I
led the writing of the paper, conducted the historical archive research and
participant observations that comprise the empirical content.
Paper II — Socioecological Dynamics in Response to Urban Flooding and
Land Abandonment in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina
This paper analyzes social and ecological factors to explain urban vegetation
dynamics in New Orleans, USA, following Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
While the failure of the regional flood protection system was widespread, the
intensity of flooding effects were dependent upon the mosaic urban land32
scape, and this provides opportunities to understand how social and ecological factors intertwine to produce different ecological outcomes. We intensively surveyed vegetation in four contiguous neighborhoods in New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish that lie within the Bienvenue Basin, a heavily
modified deltaic estuary that was largely inundated for up to three weeks
following Katrina. For comparison, we used vegetation data collected from
four neighborhoods with a range of distinct demographic and topographical
features. We collected data on human population levels, housing recovery,
infrastructure provision, and state sponsored environmental management
programs from the US Census, assorted state and municipal government
agencies, and interviews with land managers. Our analysis shows that areas
subject to highest trauma to vegetation are also subject to the highest rates of
vegetation expansion over the decade following Hurricane Katrina. This
indicates that severe and prolonged flooding, post-disaster depopulation, and
high rates of land abandonment are combining to drive vegetation patterns in
the study area. These dynamics are neither purely social nor ecological, but
socioecological and mediated by varying intensities of landscape management in different neighborhoods. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings for studies of environmental justice and socialecological resilience in urban landscapes. I co-authored this paper with
Wayne Zipperer, Rebecca Hazen, Thomas Elmqvist and Henrik Ernstson. I
participated in all aspects research design of data collection, conducted the
analysis of demographic and geographic data, and led the writing of the paper.
Paper III — The Disappearing River: Infrastructure and Urban Nature in
New Orleans
Following scholarship in science and technology studies this chapter examines the regional socioecological entanglements generated by the construction and management of a concrete drainage siphon in New Orleans. Completed in 1921, the siphon’s architects described it as a “disappearing river,”
intended to permit the city’s main drainage outflow canal to pass underneath
a newly dredged shipping canal without cross-contamination of their respective waters. This compromise, negotiated hastily by drainage engineers and
port officials, had profound implications for the patterns of flooding and
ecological change in the area during the 20th century. This method, described
as “infrastructural inversion,” seeks to interrogate socio-technical relations
by adopting an object-oriented approach, unearthing the typically invisible
infrastructures that underpin urban life today (Bowker and Star, 2000). By
assessing the siphon’s social, infrastructural, and ecological embeddedness
over time, its agency in the ecology of the city is rendered visible. The analysis reveals that the siphon stitched together a web of relations that distributed environmental benefits and hazards throughout the landscape and across
33
social difference. In doing so, the account argues for greater attention by
scholars and planners to infrastructures that, while invisible, generate persistent and lasting effects on the trajectory of urbanization and environmental
transformation in and around cities. Developed as a chapter in a forthcoming
edited book entitled “Grounding Urban Natures,” this chapter is intended for
a broad range of scholars and practitioners interested in the role of infrastructure in shaping urban ecosystems. This is a single-authored paper submitted as part of an international book project.
Paper IV — Towards a Political Ecology of Maritime Transportation:
Infrastructural zones, emergent environments, and collective action
This article develops an approach to the political ecology of maritime transportation that focuses on the reorganization of coastal environments, port
cities, and inland waterways for navigation purposes, particularly the creation and standardization of deepwater shipping networks. The impending
expansion of the Panama Canal serves as an empirical example of how developments in global maritime transportation are intertwined with situated
socioecological changes across dispersed, networked locations. By bridging
scholarship in transportation geography, political ecology, and science and
technology studies, we develop the following argument: First, global maritime transportation systems function through the collective political and
economic work of establishing and managing transnational infrastructural
zones organized around technical connection standards. Second, the establishment of infrastructural zones through standards requires place-based
environmental transformations. In the case of maritime transportation, dams,
locks, dredges, and other technologies are used to standardize waterscapes to
facilitate cargo transportation across varied geographies. The environmental
changes that result reflect—but also exceed—the organization of transnational infrastructural zones and the intentions of managers and other actors
seeking to participate therein. Third, infrastructural zones and the emergent
environments of maritime transportation give rise to place-based political
action and contention, including conflicts between the beneficiaries of navigation-related changes and communities they marginalize. We conclude by
summarizing our proposed research framework and discussing the implications of such studies for research, maritime development, and related forms
of activism and resistance. This paper is co-authored with Ashley Carse. The
research framework proposed was developed collaboratively, and the writing
of the paper was thoroughly shared, with Dr. Carse taking the lead.
34
Paper V — Contesting the Coast: Socio-ecological Cleavages and Coastal
Planning in the Mississippi River Delta
We develop an analytical repertoire for understanding historical interrelationships between water infrastructure, regional environmental politics, and
large-scale coastal ecosystems. This requires a historically grounded approach that can account not only for social actors and their politics, but how
infrastructural technologies and the material flows they mediate, are embedded in wider ecological relations. Our account from New Orleans and the
Mississippi River Delta traces several large-scale hydrological engineering
projects with origins in the early 20th century, which aimed to restructure the
deltaic landscape for more effective maritime transportation, flood protection, and urban drainage. The account concludes with a discussion of an
‘ecosystem-based infrastructure’ project, which aims to restore the historical
dynamics of the Mississippi Delta, and produce coastal wetlands to provide
storm protection for vulnerable communities, most especially New Orleans.
Our analysis shows how the development of water infrastructure systems in
the region has produced socioecological cleavages – persistent divisions in
the body politic and spatial patterns in the delta’s eco-hydrology. The conflicts that emerge from these cleavages comprise the primary obstacle facing
efforts to secure New Orleans and other major settlements in the region from
devastating storm surge and inundation through ecosystem-based flood protection strategies. Further, the paper opens a dialogue between literature on
ecological regime shifts and relational geography/urban political ecology
(UPE), which are increasingly influential in discussions around ecological
transformation, climate change adaptation, social equity, and environmental
justice. The paper is co-authored with Henrik Ernstson. The conceptual development and theoretical framing of the paper was conducted collaboratively over several years. I conducted the data collection, and led the writing of
this paper.
Concluding Remarks
The five papers presented in this thesis strive to bring greater analytical
clarity to the study of infrastructure and the environment. The long time
frames associated with the establishment of infrastructural zones means that
any investigation into their socioecological implications is an historical endeavor. This has brought about a negotiation between historical approaches
to social relations and the environment, and the more systems-oriented perspectives common at the Stockholm Resilience Centre, which was my institutional home during my thesis work. Many fields thrive by delving into the
complexities of historical events, including historical geography, environmental history, science and technology studies, political ecology, and histor35
ical ecology (Balée, 2006; Crumley, 1994; Jørgensen et al., 2013; Robbins,
2012). These traditions share an appreciation for historical contingency and
context-specific processes in the production of contemporary socioecological
relations. When operating at high levels of conceptual abstraction, such perspectives show a reluctance for making claims on knowledge of “system
dynamics” at large, and formulate research questions and theoretical arguments more grounded in their respective research contexts. The study of
social-ecological systems, on the other hand, has been developed by researchers who are typically more comfortable moving between concrete
observations and quite abstract constructs drawn from underlying abstract
theories of complex systems and ecosystems, which typically view reality as
a set of hierarchically nested scales, from the organism, to the Earth system.
The production of scientific knowledge that is broadly accessible and relevant for policymaking and ecosystem management is also commonly emphasized (Folke, 2006; Folke et al., 2005). These traditions are in certain
respects in tension with one another, one valuing contingency as a means for
understanding broader aspects, and the other, moving more quickly towards
abstraction and generality of findings. In collaboration with my co-authors
and mentors, this thesis attempts to wrestle with the inherent tensions that
arise in working between these research traditions.
Infrastructure itself, has offered a productive way to work out these tensions.
On the one hand, water infrastructure in Louisiana is obviously historical,
material, political, and ecological. It is also clearly nested in a web of global
relations, owing to its hydrological centrality in the Mississippi drainage
basin, but also in its position as a control point in the global maritime transportation system. The particular ways in which infrastructure intervenes in
socioecological relations, and vice-versa, provides an empirical basis from
which to discern broader dynamics. In the thesis, this is achieved by moving
from a relatively discreet location (like the drainage siphon in Paper III or
the diameter of a single tree in Paper II) to processes and flows that operate
across global geographies, like the maritime transportation infrastructures
described in Paper IV. The concepts of infrastructural zones and ecological
regime shifts provided a useful way, in particular in Paper IV and Paper V,
to explicate these findings, and engage in grounded speculation on how the
ecology of infrastructure in New Orleans might be globally interconnected
through technical standards, material flows, and political contention. Clearly,
the methods and theoretical concerns of Paper II, which focuses on vegetation patterns and dynamics, diverge somewhat from the other papers in the
thesis, due to the primary object of study. Still, the infrastructure failures
documented in the other papers is shown to shape these vegetation outcomes, and the historical processes and spatial relations that prefigured those
failures are evident in the abandoned properties, thick stands of emergent
trees, and expansive maintained grasslands that have arisen in the wake of
36
Katrina. Further methodological developments, which were not central to
this thesis, will be necessary and important to do in future work.
In conclusion Deltaic Dilemmas aims to unearth historically persistent patterns of ecological change, social exclusion and marginalization, and infrastructure provision in the Mississippi River Delta and New Orleans. The five
papers presented in this thesis aim to contribute to conversations around
infrastructure through an empirically rich, field-informed, and historically
robust set of methods and conceptual maneuvers. In doing so, the thesis presents a novel approach to the geographically situated and globally interconnected nature of large-scale infrastructure and its attendant social and ecological transformations. It is my hope that these papers can inform the growing scholarship on infrastructure and the environment, and promote dialogue
between the social and natural scientists engaged in such matters, and within
relevant industries and civil society, where the consequential and environmentally transformative standards and topologies of infrastructure are established and negotiated. The way that these standards cast their long shadow
into the future in the form of shaping real landscapes, peoples and ecosystem
dynamics will be of greater and greater concern on a warming planet. I furthermore hope that the tracing of historical relations, and their effects today
in New Orleans and the Mississippi Delta, can inform local debates, while
connecting to wider and global issues in the form of knowledge exchange
and policy discussions.
37
References
Balée, W., 2006, The Research Program of Historical Ecology, Annual
Review of Anthropology 35(1):75-98.
Berkes, F., Folke, C., 1998, Linking Social and Ecological Systems,
Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 476-476.
Biggs, R., Carpenter, S. R., Brock, W. A., 2009, Turning back from the
brink: Detecting an impending regime shift in time to avert it, PNAS
106:826-831.
Bijker, W. E., Hughes, T. P., Pinch, T., Douglas, D. G., 2012, The social
construction of technological systems: New directions in the
sociology and history of technology, MIT press.
Blaikie, P., Brookfield, H., 1987, Land degradation and society, Methuen.
Blum, M. D., Roberts, H. H., 2009, Drowning of the Mississippi Delta due
to insufficient sediment supply and global sea-level rise, Nature
Geoscience 2(7):488-491.
Bowker, G. C., 1994, Science on the run: Information management and
industrial geophysics at Schlumberger, 1920-1940, MIT press.
Bowker, G. C., Star, S. L., 2000, Sorting things out: Classification and its
consequences, MIT press.
Bridges, T., Henn, R., Komlos, S., Scerno, D., Wamsley, T., White, K.,
2013, Coastal Risk Reduction and Resilience: Using the Full Array
of Measures, US Army Corps of Engineers: Directorate of Civil
Works.
Bulleri, F., Chapman, M. G., 2010, The introduction of coastal infrastructure
as a driver of change in marine environments, Journal of Applied
Ecology 47(1):26-35.
Campanella, R., 2006, Geographies of New Orleans: Urban fabrics before
the storm, University of Louisiana at Lafayette.
Campanella, R., 2008, Bienville's dilemma: a historical geography of New
Orleans, Center for Louisiana Studies, University of Louisiana at
Lafayette Lafayette.
Colten, C. E., 2006, An unnatural metropolis: Wresting New Orleans from
nature, LSU Press.
Cote, M., Nightingale, A. J., 2012, Resilience thinking meets social theory
Situating social change in socio-ecological systems (SES) research,
Progress in Human Geography 36(4):475-489.
Crona, B., Bodin, Ö., 2010, Power asymmetries in small-scale fisheries: a
barrier to governance transformability, Ecology and Society
15(4):32.
Crona, B., Hubacek, K., 2010, The right connections: how do social
networks lubricate the machinery of natural resource governance,
Ecology and Society 15(4):18.
Crona, B. I., Parker, J. N., 2012, Learning in support of governance:
theories, methods, and a framework to assess how bridging
organizations contribute to adaptive resource governance, Ecology
and Society 17(1):32.
38
Cronon, W., 1991, Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West,
Norton, New York.
Crumley, C. L., 1994, Historical Ecology: Culture, Knowledge and
Changing Landscapes, School of American Research Press, Santa
Fe, NM, USA.
Davis, D. K., 2009, Historical political ecology: On the importance of
looking back to move forward, Geoforum 40(3):285-286.
Della Porta, D., 2014, Methodological practices in social movement
research, Oxford University Press.
Della Porta, D., Diani, M., 2006, Social Movements - An Introduction,
Blackwell.
Ernstson, H., 2013, The social production of ecosystem services: A
framework for studying environmental justice and ecological
complexity in urbanized landscapes, Landscape and Urban
Planning 109(1):7-17.
Ernstson, H., Leeuw, S. E., Redman, C. L., Meffert, D. J., Davis, G., Alfsen,
C., Elmqvist, T., 2010, Urban Transitions: On Urban Resilience and
Human-Dominated Ecosystems, Ambio 39(8):531-545.
Ernstson, H., Sörlin, S., 2013, Ecosystem services as technology of
globalization: On articulating values in urban nature, Ecological
Economics 86(February):274-284.
Ernstson, H., Sörlin, S., Elmqvist, T., 2008, Social movements and
ecosystem services: The role of social network structure in
protecting and managing urban green areas in Stockholm, Ecology
and Society 13(2):39-39.
Fischer, J., Gardner, T. A., Bennett, E. M., Balvanera, P., Biggs, R.,
Carpenter, S., Daw, T., Folke, C., Hill, R., Hughes, T. P., Luthe, T.,
Maass, M., Meacham, M., Norström, A. V., Peterson, G., Queiroz,
C., Seppelt, R., Spierenburg, M., Tenhunen, J., 2015, Advancing
sustainability through mainstreaming a social–ecological systems
perspective, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability
14:144-149.
Folke, C., 2006, Resilience: The emergence of a perspective for social–
ecological systems analyses, Global Environmental Change 16:253267.
Folke, C., Carpenter, S., Walker, B., Scheffer, M., Elmqvist, T., Gunderson,
L., Holling, C., 2004, Regime shifts, resilience, and biodiversity in
ecosystem management, Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and
Systematics:557-581.
Folke, C., Hahn, T., Olsson, P., Norberg, J., 2005, Adaptive Governance of
Social-Ecological Systems, Annual Review of Environment and
Resources 30(1):441-473.
Gandy, M., 2002, Concrete and Clay: Reworking Nature in New York City,
MIT Press.
Gandy, M., 2004, Rethinking urban metabolism: water, space and the
modern city, City 8(3):363-379.
39
Gandy, M., 2008, Landscapes of disaster: water, modernity, and urban
fragmentation in Mumbai, Environment and planning. A 40(1):108.
Geels, F. W., 2005, The dynamics of transitions in socio-technical systems: a
multi-level analysis of the transition pathway from horse-drawn
carriages to automobiles (1860–1930), Technology Analysis &
Strategic Management 17(4):445-476.
Graham, S., Marvin, S., 2001, Splintering urbanism: networked
infrastructures, technological mobilities and the urban condition,
Psychology Press.
Graham, S., McFarlane, C., 2014, Infrastructural Lives: Urban Infrastructure
in Context, Routledge.
Grove, J. M., Burch, W. R., 1997, A social ecology approach and
applications of urban ecosystem and landscape analyses: a case
study of Baltimore, Maryland, Urban Ecosystems 1(4):259-275.
Gunderson, L. H., Holling, C. S., 2002, Panarchy: Understanding
Transformations in Human and Natural Systems, Island Press, pp.
xxiv, 507-xxiv, 507.
Gunderson, L. H., Holling, C. S., Peterson, G. D., 2001, Gunderson, Holling,
Peterson - Surprises and sustainability cycles of renewal in the
everglades.pdf.
Hatt, B. E., Fletcher, T. D., Walsh, C. J., Taylor, S. L., 2004, The influence
of urban density and drainage infrastructure on the concentrations
and loads of pollutants in small streams, Environmental management
34(1):112-124.
Heynen, N. C., Kaika, M., Swyngedouw, E., 2006, In the nature of cities:
urban political ecology and the politics of urban metabolism, Taylor
& Francis.
Holling, C. S., 1973, Resilience and stability of ecological systems, Annual
Review of Ecological Systems 4:1-23.
Holling, C. S., Meffe, G. K., 1996, Command and control and the pathology
of Natural Resource Management, Conservation Biology 10(2):328337.
Holling, C. S. S., 1986, The resilience of terrestrial ecosystems: local
surprise and global change (X. X. Clark, X. X. Moon, eds.), pp. 292320.
Hughes, T. P., 1987, The evolution of large technological systems, The
social construction of technological systems: New directions in the
sociology and history of technology:51-82.
Jørgensen, D., Jørgensen, F. A., Pritchard, S. B., 2013, New natures: Joining
environmental history with science and technology studies,
University of Pittsburgh Pre.
Kaika, M., Swyngedouw, E., 2000, Fetishizing the Modern City: The
Phantasmagoria of Urban Technological Networks, International
Journal of Urban and Regional Research 24(1):120-138.
Karvonen, A., 2011, Politics of Urban Runoff: Nature, Technology, and the
Sustainable City, MIT Press, Urban & Industrial Environments
Series.
40
Kaye, J. P., Groffman, P. M., Grimm, N. B., Baker, L. A., Pouyat, R. V.,
2006, A distinct urban biogeochemistry?, Trends in Ecology &
Evolution 21(4):192-199.
Kelman, A., 2006, A river and its city: The nature of landscape in New
Orleans, Univ of California Press.
Kildow, J. T., Colgan, C. S., Scorse, J. D., 2009, State of the US ocean and
coastal economies 2009, National Ocean Economics Program.
Klepeis, P., Turner, B., 2001, Integrated land history and global change
science:: the example of the Southern Yucatán Peninsular Region
project, Land Use Policy 18(1):27-39.
Kolker, A. S., Allison, M. a., Hameed, S., 2011, An evaluation of subsidence
rates and sea-level variability in the northern Gulf of Mexico,
Geophysical Research Letters 38(21):1-6.
Konijnendijk, C. C., Ricard, R. M., Kenney, A., Randrup, T. B., 2006,
Defining urban forestry–A comparative perspective of North
America and Europe, Urban Forestry & Urban Greening 4(3):93103.
Lade, S. J., Tavoni, A., Levin, S. A., Schlüter, M., 2013, Regime shifts in a
social-ecological system, Theoretical ecology 6(3):359-372.
Lewis, P. F., 2003, New Orleans: The making of an urban landscape, Center
for American Places.
Lewontin, R., Levins, R., 1985, The Dialectical Biologist.
Likens, G. E., 2001, Biogeochemistry, the watershed approach: some uses
and limitations, Marine and Freshwater Research 52(1):5-12.
Lindeboom, H., 2002, The coastal zone: an ecosystem under pressure, in:
Oceans, pp. 49-84.
Melosi, M. V., 2000, The Sanitary City: urban infrastructures from colonial
times to the present, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore,
MD. .
Möllmann, C., Folke, C., Edwards, M., Conversi, A., 2015, Marine regime
shifts around the globe: theory, drivers and impacts, Philosophical
Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 370(1659).
Monstadt, J., 2009, Conceptualizing the political ecology of urban
infrastructures: insights from technology and urban studies,
Environment and Planning A 41(8):1924-1942.
Nicholls, R. J., Hanson, S. E., Lowe, J. A., Warrick, R. A., Lu, X., Long, A.
J., 2014, Sea‐level scenarios for evaluating coastal impacts, Wiley
Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change 5(1):129-150.
Odum, E. P., 1969, The strategy of ecosystem development, Sustainability:
Sustainability 164:58.
Odum, E. P., Odum, H. T., Andrews, J., 1971, Fundamentals of ecology,
Saunders Philadelphia.
Offen, K. H., 2004, Historical political ecology: an introduction, Historical
Geography 32:19-42.
Olsson, P., Folke, C., 2001, Local Ecological Knowledge and Institutional
Dynamics for Ecosystem Management : A Study of Lake Racken
Watershed , Sweden:85-104.
41
Olsson, P., Folke, C., Hahn, T., 2004, Social-ecological transformation for
ecosystem management: the development of adaptive comanagement of a wetland landscape in southern Sweden, Ecology
and Society 9(4):26-26.
Pachauri, R. K., Allen, M., Barros, V., Broome, J., Cramer, W., Christ, R.,
Church, J., Clarke, L., Dahe, Q., Dasgupta, P., 2014, Climate
Change 2014: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I,
II and III to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change.
Peterson, G., 2000, Political ecology and ecological resilience: An
integration of human and ecological dynamics, Ecological
Economics 35(3):323-336.
Robbins, P., 2012, Political Ecology: A Critical Introduction, WileyBlackwell, Malden and Oxford.
Rocha, J., Yletyinen, J., Biggs, R., Blenckner, T., Peterson, G., 2015, Marine
regime shifts: drivers and impacts on ecosystems services,
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B:
Biological Sciences 370(1659):20130273.
Rowntree, R. A., 1984, Ecology of the urban forest—introduction to part I,
Urban Ecology 8(1):1-11.
Saltus, C. L., Suir, G. M., Barras, J. A., 2012, Land and Forest Area Changes
in the Vicinity of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet , Central
Wetlands Region , 1935-2010 Land and Forest Area Changes in the
Vicinity of the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet , Central Wetlands
Region , 1935-2010, (March).
Scheffer, M., Carpenter, S., Foley, J. A., Folke, C., Walker, B., 2001,
Catastrophic shifts in ecosystems, Nature 413:591-596.
Scheffer, M., Carpenter, S. R., 2003, Catastrophic regime shifts in
ecosystems: linking theory to observation, Trends in Ecology &
Evolution 18(12):648-656.
Seto, K. C., 2011, Exploring the dynamics of migration to mega-delta cities
in Asia and Africa: Contemporary drivers and future scenarios,
Global Environmental Change 21:S94-S107.
Shaffer, G. P., Day Jr, J. W., Mack, S., Kemp, G. P., van Heerden, I.,
Poirrier, M. A., Westphal, K. A., FitzGerald, D., Milanes, A.,
Morris, C. A., 2009, The MRGO Navigation Project: a massive
human-induced environmental, economic, and storm disaster,
Journal of Coastal Research:206-224.
Smith, A., Stirling, A., 2010, The politics of social-ecological resilience and
sustainable socio-technical transitions, Ecology and Society
15(1):11.
Spalding, M. D., McIvor, A. L., Beck, M. W., Koch, E. W., Möller, I., Reed,
D. J., Rubinoff, P., Spencer, T., Tolhurst, T. J., Wamsley, T. V.,
2014, Coastal ecosystems: a critical element of risk reduction,
Conservation Letters 7(3):293-301.
42
Star, S. L., Ruhleder, K., 1996, Steps toward an ecology of infrastructure:
Design and access for large information spaces, Information systems
research 7(1):111-134.
Swyngedouw, E., 2006, Circulations and metabolisms:(hybrid) natures and
(cyborg) cities, Science as Culture 15(2):105-121.
Syvitski, J. P., Kettner, A. J., Overeem, I., Hutton, E. W., Hannon, M. T.,
Brakenridge, G. R., Day, J., Vörösmarty, C., Saito, Y., Giosan, L.,
2009, Sinking deltas due to human activities, Nature Geoscience
2(10):681-686.
Temmerman, S., Kirwan, M. L., 2015, Building land with a rising sea,
Science 349(6248):588-589.
Tessler, Z. D., Vörösmarty, C. J., Grossberg, M., Gladkova, I., Aizenman,
H., Syvitski, J. P. M., Foufoula-Georgiou, E., 2015, Profiling risk
and sustainability in coastal deltas of the world, Science
349(6248):638-643.
Turner, B., Robbins, P., 2008, Land-change science and political ecology:
similarities, differences, and implications for sustainability science,
Annual review of environment and resources 33:295-316.
Turner, B. L., Lambin, E. F., Reenberg, A., 2007, The emergence of land
change science for global environmental change and sustainability,
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 104(52):2066620671.
Turner, M. D., 2013, Political ecology I An alliance with resilience?,
Progress in Human Geography:0309132513502770.
Voß, J.-P., Bornemann, B., 2011, The politics of reflexive governance:
challenges for designing adaptive management and transition
management, Ecology and Society 16(2):9.
Walker, B., Meyers, J. A., 2004, Thresholds in ecological and
socialecological systems: a developing database, Ecology and
society 9(2):3.
Walsh, C. J., Roy, A. H., Feminella, J. W., Cottingham, P. D., Groffman, P.
M., Morgan, R. P., 2005, The urban stream syndrome: current
knowledge and the search for a cure, Journal of the North American
Benthological Society 24(3):706-723.
Wamsley, T. V., Cialone, M. A., Smith, J. M., Atkinson, J. H., Rosati, J. D.,
2010, The potential of wetlands in reducing storm surge, Ocean
Engineering 37(1):59-68.
Williams, R., Edge, D., 1996, The social shaping of technology, Research
policy 25(6):865-899.
Yuill, B., Lavoie, D., Reed, D. J., 2009, Understanding Subsidence
Processes in Coastal Louisiana Understanding Subsidence Processes
in Coastal Louisiana, (10054):23-36.
43