Journal of Remote Sensing & GIS

New Orleans: Historic city with a poor memory

World Congress on GIS & Remote Sensing

August 01-03, 2016 New Orleans, Louisiana, USA

Craig E Colten

Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, USA

Keynote: J Remote Sensing & GIS

Abstract:

New Orleans is a city with a rich history that provides the foundation for its tourist attractions and its economy. It is also a city that has endured repeated destruction due to river floods and hurricanes and rebounded after each. One of the core principles of urban resilience is preserving the memory of lessons learned in the course of past events. This paper traces the erosion of social memory of key elements of urban development in the wake of a series of dramatic hurricanes. The purpose is to draw attention on the loss of urgency between tragic events and to foster more deliberate attempts to bolster the retention of lessons learned and to perpetuate social memory.

Biography :

Craig E Colten earned his PhD from Syracuse University in 1984. He began his career working for the State of Illinois documenting historical hazardous waste sites and moved to the private sector to participate in litigation-support research for a number of years. In 2000, he joined the Geography faculty at Louisiana State University. He wrote the award winning book, “Unnatural Metropolis: Wresting New Orleans from Nature” and recently published “Southern Waters: The Limits to Abundance”.

Email: ccolten@lsu.edu