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CPRA’s CRMS team reports sea‑level acceleration since 2011, coastal inundation increases and new coastal change synthesis
Summary
Leanne Sharp, CRMS program lead at CPRA, reported on a 390‑site monitoring network that recorded a coast‑wide rise in relative water levels beginning around 2011 and substantial basin‑specific responses, including freshening in Calcasieu‑Sabine and increased inundation across many marsh types.
Leanne Sharp, CPRA’s Coastwide Reference Monitoring System (CRMS) lead, gave the board a program update describing network scope, recent findings and next steps for data collection.
CRMS is a long‑running monitoring network CPRA implements with the U.S. Geological Survey and contractors. Sharp said CRMS comprises roughly 390 randomly distributed sites across coastal Louisiana; each site collects a consistent set of measurements used to infer marsh and basin‑scale changes. “It was initially funded by the CWPPRA program to support monitoring of their projects,” Sharp said, noting the network is now used widely by state and federal planners, academics and consultants.
Sharp summarized major signals from the CRMS time series. The network recorded an inflection in regional relative water levels beginning around 2011; coastal water levels rose coastwide through the mid‑ to late‑2010s and then declined toward 2023, a pattern Sharp described as a high‑water period followed by more recent lower readings. The change in water levels coincided with higher rainfall and resulted in deeper and more prolonged inundation in several marsh types. Sharp said that, on average, water levels between 2014 and 2019 rose by roughly six‑tenths of a foot at the CRMS sites shown, a change large enough to stress marsh vegetation in many locations.
CRMS findings also captured basin‑specific results: the Calcasieu‑Sabine Basin saw pronounced freshening during the high‑water years (which contributed to marsh detachment and floating marsh mats), while some deltaic sites on the lower delta plain became saltier. Sharp described a coast‑wide analysis that grouped sites by recent land‑change behavior: continuous land loss (largely in saline deltaic marshes), episodic land loss (storm or event‑driven), stable areas and a minority of sites showing land gain.
Sharp said the program is continuing core monitoring work this field season: surface elevation and accretion measures, vegetation surveys, hourly hydrology (water level and salinity) and analysis of a new 2024 coast‑wide flight that will help quantify recent hurricane and drought impacts (including effects from Hurricane Francine). She said the dataset supports project selection, engineering design and adaptive management; CRMS data were used, she said, to prioritize features in recent large projects such as the Calcasieu‑Sabine hydrologic restoration work.
Board members asked about real‑time data availability, the potential to expand real‑time gauges for operational drainage uses and the prospects for artificial intelligence and machine‑learning analysis on the CRMS datasets. Sharp said most CRMS data follow quality‑control workflows and that USGS maintains a subset of real‑time sites; she noted CRMS contractors and CPRA staff continue to strengthen data tools, and CPRA has used machine‑learning approaches in project analyses such as the Calcasieu‑Sabine planning work.
Ending: Sharp said the CRMS program will release new spatial analyses based on the 2024 flight later in the year and that ongoing field campaigns will collect elevation, accretion and vegetation data through the spring and summer.
