“…One of the things that gives (New Orleans) a good chance against rising sea level is the fact that this (wetlands) is a live living dynamic system. The marsh is alive. And if you give the marsh sediment from the river and fresh water, it will actually rise as sea level rises. That buffer will continue and come back…”
John Barry, author of Rising Tide in an interview with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Feb 6, 2010

Actually, recent research shows that Greater New Orleans’s subsidence (rate of sinking) is only 1mm/yr or about 4 inches by the end of this century. Furthermore, such subsidence is a non-issue. If this were a potential danger, billions of people around the world should be packing their bags. The majority of major metropolitan areas on this planet – and 39 out of 50 major cities in the United States – are in flood plains. Historically that’s because towns and cities developed on rivers to supply daily water needs and also for affordable transportation of commerce. And in more recent times, the trend is for people to locate near rivers and coastal areas for recreational reasons and it continues to be popular.