About Us

About our project

The U.S., and Louisiana in particular, is failing to address flood risk, and economic, physical, and social resilience to flood hazards remains unattainable because of a lot of debt.

A primary reason that these levels of flood losses continue and that community resilience remains elusive is that the “building code” standard fails to reduce flood damage sufficiently.  

The solution appears simple: create and enforce freeboard standards. In an analysis of 450 U.S. communities participating in the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA’s) Community Rating System (CRS; Zahran et al., 2010) , Highfield and Brody (2013; 2017) found that freeboard requirements in the SFHA promote the most overall cost savings to flood damage, followed by open space protection and flood protection.

Goals

The goal of this project, funded by Louisiana Sea Grant’s Omnibus Program, is to identify, evaluate, and address the economic, physical, personal perception, and policy incentives/barriers to increased freeboard for new home construction in Louisiana and communicate results with stakeholders.

Our team

Professors

• Carol J. Friedland, Ph.D., P.E. (PI)
• Associate Professor
• Bert S. Turner Department of Construction Management, LSU
• friedland@lsu.edu



• Monica Teets Farris, Ph.D., CFM (CoPI)
• Director
• UNO-CHART (Center for Hazards Assessment Response and Technology)
• mateets@uno.edu 



• Pamela J. Jenkins, Ph.D.
• Professor Emeritus
• UNO-CHART (Center for Hazards Assessment Response and Technology)
• pjenkins@uno.edu



• Robert V. Rohli, Ph.D. (CoPI)
• Professor
• Department of Oceanography & Coastal Sciences
  Coastal Studies Institute, College of the Coast & Environment, LSU
• rohli@lsu.edu



• Yongcheol Lee, Ph.D., LEED AP, FMP (CoPI)
• Assistant Professor
• Bert S. Turner Department of Construction Management, LSU
• yclee@lsu.edu

Postdoctoral researcher

• Arash Taghi Nezhad Bilandi
• Postdoctoral researcher
• Bert S. Turner Department of Construction Management, LSU
• ataghi2@lsu.edu

Research Assistants (A-Z)

• Ehab S Gnan
• Ph.D. student
• Department of Oceanography & Coastal Sciences, LSU
• egnan1@lsu.edu



• Hoang T Tao
• Ph.D. student
• UNO-CHART (Center for Hazards Assessment Response and Technology)
• httao1@uno.edu



• Jiyoung Lee
• Ph.D. student
• Department of Geography and Anthropology, LSU
• jlee257@lsu.edu



• Md Adilur Rahim
• Ph.D. student
• Bert S. Turner Department of Construction Management, LSU
• mrahim6@lsu.edu



• Shifat P Mithila
• Ph.D. student
• Division of Computer Science and Engineering, LSU
• smithi1@lsu.edu



• Rubayet Bin Mostafiz
• Ph.D. student
• Department of Oceanography & Coastal Sciences, LSU
• rbinmo1@lsu.edu



• Yamini Kodavatiganti
• Ph.D. student
• Bert S. Turner Department of Construction Management, LSU
• ykodav1@lsu.edu