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On June 3, 2005, LSU and the School of the Coast & Environment had a ribbon-cutting ceremony to launch the Shell Coastal Environmental Modeling Laboratory (CEML). The ceremony celebrated a second contribution of $300,000 from the Shell Oil Company Foundation as part of the seed money for the laboratory, which will advance wetland research and wetland mitigation programs. At the ceremony, Shell also presented the “Info-Stations” that are part of their $800,000 partnership with the America’s Wetland campaign.

Speakers at the ceremony included Senator Mary Landrieu; Lieutenant Governor Mitch Landrieu; LSU President William Jenkins; SC&E Dean Ed Laws; SC&E Professor Robert Twilley, director of CEML; Bill Bowdon, president and CEO of the LSU Foundation; John Hofmeister, president of Shell Oil Company; and Todd St. Romain, owner of St. Romain Oil.

“It is important to raise public knowledge about the wetlands and how best to address the coastal erosion and wetlands loss,” said Hofmeister. “Through our partnership with LSU and America’s Wetland, we are taking steps to protect and preserve Louisiana’s natural assets for future generations—we hope these steps help lead the way for others to get involved.”

“This very generous gift further demonstrates Shell’s commitment to LSU and the future of Louisiana,” said Bowdon. “We could not be more pleased to see one of the world’s great corporations take the lead in addressing Louisiana’s most vital environmental need.”

The Shell CEML is a result of COAST 2050, the initial call to action that led to development of a comprehensive restoration plan known as the Louisiana Coastal Area Comprehensive Ecosystem Restoration Plan (LCA). This program is a joint effort by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the state of Louisiana. This alliance represents one of the most ambitious large-scale environmental restoration efforts yet planned in the United States. The comprehensive plan is bold, and expensive, and full of uncertainties about both causal mechanisms of coastal degradation (diagnostics), and measures sufficient to correct the problem (prescription). Furthermore, the choice of any course of action must first be based upon defensible science and agreed upon in a very public process.

Seizing upon the need two years ago to develop the tools to build a defensible science program, the Shell Oil Company Foundation agreed to provide seed funding to SC&E to initiate the Coastal Environmental Modeling Laboratory at LSU. The June 3 celebration of a second contribution of $300,000 from Shell launches Shell CEML to become an influential, internationally respected center for environmental forecasting with a special focus on innovative and multidisciplinary restoration strategies that lead to sustainability in Louisiana's coastal regions and the Gulf of Mexico.

Developing a coastal ecosystem forecasting system is proposed as the focus of the science plan for the Shell CEML. Ecosystem forecasts describe how physical, geological, chemical, and ecological changes from both natural and human disturbances affect ecosystem structure and function. These forecasts are not exact predictions of ecosystem response; rather, they describe the probability of change based on scientifically defensible assumptions of how ecosystems work. Such forecasts answer questions about “What will happen if…” these changes occur. Another crucial element of the plan is to forecast the response of ecosystems to changes brought about by human mechanisms intended to correct the causes of ecosystem degradation – or ecosystem rehabilitation. It will help answer such questions as “What will happen to the Mississippi River Deltaic Plain…” under different restoration scenarios combined with different climate change scenarios. These forecasts will describe what combination of physical resources from the river and the coast are necessary to build the geomorphic framework to support the ecological diversity that will sustain our coast. Sustainability will be evaluated both in terms of environmental quality, economic development, and public safety along one of the most economically significant, culturally rich, and environmentally vulnerable coastlines in the United States. In addition, the science and technology developed through this laboratory in partnerships with programs among other universities within Louisiana will be exported to solve environmental problems in deltas around the world.

“The Shell Coastal Environmental Modeling Laboratory represents the type of partnership among corporate, education, and government institutions to meet the challenges of implementing integrated science, engineering and management programs necessary to truly realize ecosystem restoration goals,’ described Robert R. Twilley, director of the new facility.

Shell CEML purchased a cluster consisting of 64 dual-processor computational nodes, two login servers, two storage servers, and a 4TB raid storage device. The system is connected using two Gigabit networks; the first network is used for message passing while the second network is used for the network file system and to provide for input /output. All systems are running the 64–bit version of the Linux operating system. The National Partnership for Advanced Computational Infrastructure (www.npaci.edu) Rocks x86 64–cluster distribution is used for all the nodes. The cluster system is housed in the fully equipped machine room at the Frey Computing Services Building.

Rehabilitating one of the largest river deltas in the world is a formidable challenge; but one that has huge consequences to the region and to the nation. This challenge will require huge investments in science and engineering capacity, including both computational and professional capital. The donation by Shell Oil Company Foundation is the kind of investment in higher education of Louisiana that is required to meet this challenge. The diagnostics and prescriptions necessary to solve this immense environmental problem will have huge benefits to the economic sustainability of Louisiana and the nation. Thus this initial investment, while significant, is the first of many that will be needed to see this project to completion. But investments in research and development to build capabilities in coastal sciences and engineering represent the type of bold leadership that will help secure the effectiveness of this rehabilitation program.